


beyond all ideas of right and wrong

by artifice



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018), Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: 9/11, Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Content warnings:, Drinking, Drug Addiction, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Some Humor, Trigger warnings:, Underage Frottage, also for some reason spacing gets messed up whenever i edit this, i'm just trying to vibe and experiment with these characters and themes, just ao3 struggles, please don't take it too seriously, this is really very self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:55:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28726950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artifice/pseuds/artifice
Summary: THE HALFBLOODS: THE RISE, DECLINE, AND REBIRTH OF THE EARLY 2000’S BIGGEST ROCK BAND“Well, I’m not going to point fingers,” says ex-manager Annabeth Jackson (née Chase), who worked with the band from 2000 to 2015. “There were a lot of factors… fame got to some people, others got riled up over creative enterprise, and their constant being together probably didn’t help. Not to mention the drugs, the drinking, the drama— they were thrust into the spotlight before they were ready to actually want it."Read moreOr: one week withRolling Stone, thirty years with the same band, one long-term relationship, a major book deal, and far,fartoo much press bullshit for frontman Nico di Angelo to deal with.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Calypso/Leo Valdez, Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, mentions of/references to other relationships
Comments: 16
Kudos: 50





	1. take me in your army

**Author's Note:**

> i was thinking about julian casablancas and then ummmmmmm this happened over the course of like two months. gee good thing i'm pretty much always thinking about. julian casablancas.
> 
> [the song this was all largely inspired by](https://youtu.be/SuXlZ5PHK9I)
> 
> this is finished, so i'll be updating weekly (every tuesday night).
> 
> please refer to author end notes for legal disclaimers and more!
> 
> also if u haven't done so it might be a good idea to check the tags and heed warnings. stay safe xx

از کفر و ز اسلام برون صحرائی است

ما را به میان آن فضا سودائی است

عارف چو بدان رسید سر را بنهد

نه کفر و نه اسلام و نه آنجا جائی است

\- Rumi

(Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.)[1]

* * *

**_August 2, 2003 – 24 years old_ **

“Fuck!”

Nico jerked up, blood roaring in his ears and hands gripped tight around flimsy hotel sheets. He was in yesterday’s (the day before’s, last week’s) jeans, shirtless, and missing a sock— though, strangely enough, both feet were shoved into his Chuck Taylors.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted as he flailed out of the bed. A wave of nausea split his head and pulled at his stomach, and before he knew it, he was on his hands and knees, retching onto the carpet.

After what seemed like an eternity without being able to breathe, Nico finally snorted and spit the phlegm-puke-acid out of his mouth. His sinuses burned. His eyes watered. He felt like roadkill. Twice over. Crushed under a jackknifed eighteen-wheeler. Yeah, that was it.

Groaning, he let his head fall to the soiled floor, relishing the soft squish and grossness of it all.

“Fuck.”

Nico needed a shower. Another sock, maybe. Definitely a shirt.

He closed his eyes and promptly passed out again.

> **An excerpt from the fan-made descriptive captions to _En Route_ , a homemade documentary on The Halfbloods during their 2001 Tour - © user @HBCaptions on thehalfbloods.com/forums**
> 
> _The LCD monitor shows a blur of pale, washed-out skin._
> 
> “So,” _comes a bright voice from behind the screen. Whoever is operating the camcorder adjusts the zoom and brings the scene into view, though it now shows only a mosaic of muted colours._ “Nico di Angelo. Tell me your name. Tell me about yourself.”
> 
> “You just said it.”
> 
> “C’mon, go with it.”
> 
> “Wi- _ill_ ,”
> 
> “Ni- _co_ ,”
> 
> “Fine. My name is Nico, which you know because you just heard it twice. Three times.”
> 
> _Will— Solace, presumably— shakily focuses the scene by overshooting the zoom adjustments several times. Eventually, it settles, showing the disgruntled face of The Halfbloods’ frontman, Nico di Angelo, against the backdrop of a crowded plane. In the background, Percy Jackson and Jason Grace are barely-there figures who smile goofily and wave. Jackson’s wave turns into what looks suspiciously like the middle finger after the screen twitches. One has to wonder what Solace is doing behind the camera._
> 
> “Nico… what,” _Solace prompts cheekily_ , “Nico No Name?”
> 
> “di Angelo, you ass,” _di Angelo rolls his eyes impressively high, but the upturn at the corner of his mouth belies his amusement._
> 
> “Okay, Nico di-Angelo-you-ass, tell me what’s going on here.”
> 
> _Exasperated, di Angelo looks away, offering only his side profile to the camcorder._ “You’re impossible.”
> 
> _The screen shakes as Solace laughs._ “I’m sorry, okay, okay! Here, let me try again.”
> 
> “No.” _di Angelo turns his nose up imperiously._
> 
> “We’re scheduled to talk to a bunch of journ-a-lists over the next while,” _Solace enunciates, punctuating the last word with light pokes to di Angelo’s shoulder._ “Prep with me, c’mon.”
> 
> _The dark-haired frontman sighs, visibly giving up the ghost as he turns back to look at the camera. Though the wary look doesn’t leave his large eyes, he tentatively gives a small smile._
> 
> “All right, hit me.”
> 
> _The screen shakes once more._ “Yes! Okay.” _Solace clears his throat. Then, in an officious voice:_ “Nico.”
> 
> “Yes.”

**_January 30, 2001 – 22 years old  
  
_ **

Will bit his bottom lip in a bid to contain his laughter. “Nico,” he tried again, “we’re about to land in England—”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” Nico interrupted, staring down the camcorder as though to intimidate it.

“— where you’ll play a sold-out tour,” Will finished, clearing his throat again. “How do—?”

Nico talked over him again. “Pretty darn exciting.” Shifted in his seat.

“— you feel?”

Awkward silence. Will made a vague, _go on_ gesture. Nico propped his elbow on the armrest and leaned his head on his hand, covering his chin and mouth while he pretended to mull the question over.

“Wow, I don’t know,” he lifted his head slightly, voice full of mock contemplation. “It’s— I’m excited.”

More awkward silence. Then:

“Stupid as shit,” Nico snickered under his breath, though he broke out into a radiant smile.

Will adjusted his grip on the camcorder to wave dismissively. “Nah man, that was,” he searched for an appropriate line and came up blank. “That was a good answer,” he said. Then he hit the stop button.

“Yeah, I’m really gonna be ready for those interviews,” Nico said dryly. Sighed. Rubbed his hands together, as if to draw circulation back into his cold fingers. “You know I’m awful when the camera’s on me.”

After carefully placing the camcorder down on his lap, Will reached over the armrest to hold Nico’s hands in his. “It’ll be fine.”

Nico looked down at their hands. “Sure.”

> **Excerpt from “Nico di Angelo comes out!” by P. Jennings – _The Advocator_ , August 2015 issue**
> 
> “You have to understand, I was a kid when the AIDs epidemic was in full swing. Obviously, we know how HIV/AIDs works now, but back then, it was like, ‘oh, you’re _gay_? Then you’re gonna die.’ The very word was anathema. Even if somebody was straight, if they were called gay, they were denied jobs, they were outcasts. You internalize all of that.”
> 
> I ask how he’s handling acceptance— of himself, but also how’s he handling the outpouring of love and support from fans and non-fans alike. He chews on his bottom lip, the shaking of his knee getting quicker as he thinks. Then, in one of his rare, yet stunning moments of eloquence:
> 
> “Admittedly, there are days where I still feel repulsed by myself. I always saw myself as an outsider, and I only had a couple close friends, so when I finally realized I was attracted to guys, I saw myself as broken. Defunct. Jason was the first person I ever came out to, back when we were 14. After that, I was pretty reserved. Tried not to be overly affectionate with my friends so that they wouldn’t get any wrong ideas. The love from the community despite that has been surprising. Surprising, but great. Will hasn’t stopped saying ‘told you so’.”
> 
> I point out the now-widespread _Fader_ article, where Esther Daniels describes the Halfbloods as a “non-stop hug and grope fest”. Di Angelo pauses at that.
> 
> “I remember reading that, yeah,” he mumbles, “but I don’t think we were… _extremely_ clingy or anything like that. I’ve known them forever, and I’d known them forever at that point too, so it was a natural kind of horsing-around. We”— he clamps his jaw shut, visibly mulling his words over— “we were comfortable with each other.”

“Yo, Solace,” Percy waved to get his attention from across the aisle. “Pass me the camcorder, I want to do Jason.”

Annabeth smacked the back of his chair from her seat in the row behind them. “You are _not_ making a mile-high club sex tape!”

**_August 3, 2003 – 24 years old  
  
_ **

Nico woke up to the noise someone banging on his door. As he stirred into consciousness, he registered the muffled voice behind the door as well.

“— better not be naked, Nico, I’m coming in.”

The door squeaked open.

Footsteps.

“Oh, that’s _nasty_.”

Annabeth Chase.

Nico tried to protest, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a pitiful whine. Opening his mouth seemed to trigger a chain reaction of bodily responses to his predicament: the smell of drying vomit was foul and clogged at his senses, making him sick all over again. He tore his head from the floor— with resistance from the carpet, _yuck_ — and dry-heaved, gagging as he scrambled away clumsily backwards. His knee knocked painfully against a metal bedpost, and he turned to collapse onto his back, mere feet away from his own sick.

“You’re a mess.” Annabeth observed. She bent at the waist and gingerly wrapped a hand around Nico’s bony wrist, tugging him upright. “We’re tipping the cleaning staff _so_ much.”

“Fuck you,” was all Nico could muster. He needed a drink.

“Guy with Rolling Stone is pissed at you for standing him up.”

Nico lurched to his feet and swayed in place. He was not using Annabeth as a crutch. “Guy with Rolling Stone called me a ‘tone-deaf fag’.” Okay, he was using Annabeth as a crutch.

“Different guy with Rolling Stone,” the manager said patiently. “To the bathroom with you, let’s go. I’ve been calling and telling him to wait. You might be able to make it up to him.”

Reluctantly, Nico hobbled to the bathroom and leaned heavily against the sink. “Leave me alone.”

“You sure? I don’t think that’s—”

“Leave me alone,” Nico repeated. Tried his signature death glare. Annabeth frowned.

“Thank God,” she said unconvincingly, placing one hand on the doorknob. “I don’t need to see your dick any more than I’ve already seen it, I guess.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

The door closed. “Shout if you’re dying,” came Annabeth’s worried voice faintly through the wood.

Nico didn’t bother answering. He looked in the mirror, and— wow. Gaunt face, sunken eyes, so thin he could count his ribs. Dried vomit stained the side of his face yellow, and his hair was a veritable rat’s nest. He looked down at his hands: frail, shaking, littered with burn marks, complete with black grime under his fingernails. Then at his legs. His jeans barely held onto his hips. They were falling apart at the seams— it looked as though he was, too.

“Shit,” he muttered, noticing the discolouration along the inside of his left thigh. He sniffed at himself tentatively and nearly gagged. How Annabeth managed to get his ass off the floor and into the bathroom… she had more balls than Nico thought.

Quickly, he stripped off his pants and reached into the bathtub, fumbling with taps and hitting the switch to use the showerhead. He set the knob on max heat. Passed his hand through the water. Watched as the tepid stream beat weakly against the bathtub floor.

Waited a minute for any signs of steam.

Tentatively stuck his hand in the shower— _yanked it the fuck back_ , holy _fuck_ , that was like _ice._

Fuck it.

Several tense seconds later, he managed to climb into the tub and relax enough against the cold to grab at the hotel-provided soap bar. He picked a pubic hair out from where it was stuck to the side of the bar and shook his hand out under the spray, cringing all the while.

Then he set to cleaning himself up.

> **A transcript of “The Halfblood’s own Jason Grace” – SBS Television**
> 
> 88932 views • August 18, 2017
> 
> Permalink: https://youtu.be/p2Df3s4[2]
> 
> _Two thousand dollars a weekend on cocaine, heroin, and ketamine. At the height of the Halfblood’s success, that’s how much guitarist Jason Grace was spending. And then, in 2009, he hit a turning point. Getting clean, however, was not just about getting rid of substances— it was about tackling a trauma that had happened to him as a child. His latest solo album,_ Thalia _, is named after the sister he was separated from shortly after a car crash took the life of his mother, the late actress Beryl Grace._
> 
> **Grace** \- Basically, my dad couldn’t be found, and our grandparents had long-since died, so we were left to the mercy of the system until Hayden di Angelo saved us. I mean, considering the other victim of the accident, that was so generous of him. And then, you know, Thalia was… she took it really hard.
> 
> **SBS** \- How long did she stay with you and the di Angelo’s?
> 
> **Grace** \- About a month. That’s when she disappeared, at least.
> 
> **SBS** \- I can’t imagine how traumatizing that time must have been for you. How old were you?
> 
> **Grace** \- Eight. Old enough to remember the bigger picture, the general feeling of loss, I think, but young enough to forget. Time has helped, in that regard […]
> 
> **SBS** \- Let’s talk about your album. Leading up to it, or during its creation, what were you generally thinking about?
> 
> **Grace** \- Sure. It’s strange, you know, I remember early on, I was, I guess, blindly ambitious. Growing up with Nico [di Angelo] and having that driving presence around, it really pushed me to think, like, “oh, I’m going to make it no matter what the costs are”. And starting out with the band, Nico’s logic— and by extension, ours— was very much that we couldn’t have anything good for ourselves if we didn’t pour our blood, sweat, and tears into earning it.
> 
> **SBS** \- What’s changed between then and now?
> 
> **Grace** \- Well, I don’t think like that anymore. It’s hard to put myself in that position again— I don’t know, I think I defined people by what they could do. That was... destructive thinking. Even then—

**_August 16, 2002  
  
_ **

“After all those rejections, you know, it felt good to put stuff up around the place. Makes us feel the pressure a little more, makes us work a little harder,” Jason said, gesturing vaguely at the studio around him from where he was curled up in a loveseat. He blinked slowly, then squinted. “Remind me why you’re doing this again?”

Annabeth slowly panned around the room with the camcorder. “For the third time. Posterity.”

Jason snorted. Coughed. “Everybody knows Nico’s the brains behind this operation.”

“Still, you’re working.” Annabeth walked around to capture details more closely and get away from Jason’s inebriated glower. “You’re getting paid the same amount as he is.”

“Still,” Jason imitated her voice poorly.

She twitched in irritation. “You just played with the goddamn White Stripes. You’re making it, I don’t know why you think you’re not.”

Attached to the minifridge by an I <3 NYC magnet, a page torn out from Spin Magazine:

> **ENGLAND’S CREAMING…**
> 
> ITSELF OVER NYC “IT” BAND THE HALFBLOODS. WHO THE HELL ARE THEY?
> 
> Helen Smith 2001[3]
> 
> The British media treats the Halfbloods like a cross between Nirvana, ‘N Sync, and the Rat Pack, but the New York City rockers are not so jaded that they don’t like hearing themselves on the radio. Marooned in London traffic, the bandmembers huddle at the front of their minibus while drummer Leo Valdez talks to U.K. station FMX on a cell phone in the back.
> 
> The DJ introduces him as Leo “Valet”, adding that the Halfbloods are “the biggest buzz band we’ve had over here in ages.” And then some. With just two singles to their credit, the quartet’s brand of new wave by way of Warhol’s Factory has already landed them on _Top of the Pops_ and the cover of influential rock rag _NME_. Scalpers were asking as much as $200 to the band’s London show, with Katie Gardner requesting a spot on the guest list, “plus 16”. She got two.
> 
> Valdez finishes his chat with two simple requests: “One, could you play our song right now? And two, can I borrow ten quid?” FMX obliges with “NYC Pigs”, a violent little anthem from the Halfblood’s self-titled debut album. The song’s mosh-ready drums, hiccupped choruses, and metronomic guitar whoop and crackle through the tinny bus speakers. The creators are so overjoyed you’d think they’d topped American Bandstand in 1963. Is this any way for America’s supposed great rock ‘n’ roll hopes to behave?
> 
> “Our album hasn’t even come out,” says singer Nico di Angelo of such overreaching labels. “People keep asking us to gauge our success, but we haven’t even fucking done anything yet.”
> 
> That’s only half true. Released in the U.S. by Hades Records in late September, _The Halfbloods_ is a short, sharp punk-rock thrill that’s equal parts glamour and grit and sugar and sleaze. Frontman di Angelo’s gruff, plaintive pipes sound ten years older than his actual age (22); his songs are both dreamy and raging, propelled by twin guitars that orbit between celestial riffing and rocket-fueled solos, splattered over a rhythm section that can both playfully pinch your ass and kick it across the room. The sound is raw, more basement indie than potential _TRL_ fodder. But unlike, say, Pavement or Weezer, the music betrays no ambivalence toward either rock ‘n’ roll fury or pure pop ecstasy. The Halfbloods are about as ambivalent as an orgasm.

“I just don’t get why he shoots down all of our ideas. Like, we’re a band, not a fucking, I don’t know, the Nico Show.”

With an exasperated sigh, Annabeth hit the stop button on the camcorder and set it down. “If it’s bothering you so much, why don’t you talk to him?”

“I do. And Percy, and Leo, and hell, even Piper. Our first album’s barely come out, and everything’s already going wrong,” Jason complained. His points were undermined by the slur of his voice, the slowness of his words, his usual thoughtfulness impeded by alcohol.

“Jason,” Annabeth’s patience ran thin on a good day— a drunk, sad Jason was not something she had time to deal with. “Either you sober up and finish this up with me, or you mope here alone.”

The blond frowned consideringly. “Whatever,” he muttered, shifting in the loveseat to curl up more and rest limply against the back. “Flying out in a week, anyway.”

Pursing her lips, Annabeth placed the camcorder back in its case and stuffed it in her bag, standing abruptly.

“This isn’t you,” she said, surprisingly gentle despite her mood.

Jason didn’t reply.

> **Grace** \- Even then, I think there was just… a lot of material for self-hatred. If I couldn’t help creatively, then did I deserve to get royalties? And I think to a certain extent, other members felt the same way.
> 
> **SBS** \- And that influenced your level of ambition?
> 
> **Grace** \- Maybe not level of ambition, per se, but how I viewed it. If what you do is all you are, you live and die by where that goes, and intrinsically, I think people are more than that. It makes no sense— it’s bad to hinge your self-esteem on something over which you have no control.
> 
> **SBS** \- Do you think things would have been different, had you had this healthier mindset in 2000?
> 
> **Grace** \- Yeah, absolutely. I mean, despite how awful that mindset was, we needed to believe it and want it that badly to get anywhere. Nico summed it up pretty neatly, I think, sometime at the start.
> 
> **SBS** \- Really?
> 
> **Grace** \- “Absolute perfection requires absolute sacrifice.” That’s what he said. Stuck with me ever since.
> 
> **SBS** \- Do you think he still thinks like that now?
> 
> **Grace** \- God, no. So much has changed in the last, what, 20 years? We’ve been friends since we were kids, you know? I’m 37 now! I mean, we’re definitely not the same people we were at 18, 20, 22 years old. The scene was different.

**_January 10, 2002 – Interlude: Leo_ **

This scene fucking _blew_. One moment, you felt like you could do anything, you could do a photoshoot for a couple hours— and then it’d all fall apart.

“I mean, really? Who steals a coat?” Leo said after surfacing from taking yet another hit, half-whining and half-joking. Because— seriously, _who steals a coat_. “In the middle of January, too.”

Jay, or Jim, or Jan, or whatever the fuck his face was, let out a half-hearted laugh. “Dude, I literally saw you steal guitar picks this morning.”

“Whatever, man. Who steals a coat? A coat?”

“Who steals guitar picks? You don’t even play guitar!”

Leo groaned dramatically and draped himself over the back of the couch. “My life is _ohh-verrrrr_. Calypso’s dumped me again.” He let himself roll over and fall onto the couch itself, his feet narrowly missing the couch’s other occupant.

Frowning, Jim/Jay/Jan scooted off and took a swig of his beer. “Whatever,” he muttered, stalking out of the room. Judgement seemed to come off him in waves, which was totally unfair because—

> **Excerpt from “New York’s Finest” by Esther Daniels – _The_ _Fader_ , Fall 2001 Issue No. 9**
> 
> **THE HALFBLOODS ARE GOING TO SAVE ROCK MUSIC.**
> 
> This gritty band from New York has taken the UK by storm, with a hype unseen since the Beastie Boys. Their effortlessly cool style and nostalgic tunes make them the hottest new thing in punk-revival and garage rock, and they’re filling in a void faster than—

A muffled moan and a crash reverberated from the room next to his. Leo smiled from his place on the couch. God damn it all, Jason.

Why Jim/Jay/Jan/Whatever thought, fucking, _he_ could judge Leo’s eccentricities was beyond him. Who was he, even? It didn’t matter.

“What-e-ver,” he sang under his breath. The couch really was so… squishy. It was unfair— _unfair_ , really, it was unfair that Jason was having all the fun. The _world_ was so squishy. Without a second thought, Leo unzipped his jeans. “What-e- _verrr_!” He belched loudly and squirmed out of his pants. Or at least he tried.

For his efforts, he ended up belly-up on the cold, hardwood floor, his pants wide open and his dick out.

“Safety,” he mumbled.

And then he was out like a light.

> **Excerpt from _Class of 2001: The Halfbloods, 1999-2010 — An Oral History_ by Malcolm Pace (Dey St. Books, 2017)[4]**
> 
> LAVESQUE: Oh, dear. The drinking. The drugs.
> 
> RAMÍREZ-ARELLANO: Those boys didn’t know their limits. Or, if they did, all they wanted to do was push them.
> 
> LA RUE: Lou Ellen would worry her head off about the boys, especially Will.
> 
> RAMÍREZ-ARELLANO: Right around the time Nico got sober, Jason just went off the deep end. It was terrifying to witness on the sidelines… he was doing heroin before he went to rehab.
> 
> CHASE: They were all different people when they were inebriated. It allowed them to forget what was stressing them out and added to the image they were projecting, their cool New York City gang brand. A win-win, at least in their eyes.
> 
> LA RUE: The thing about Nico is, he’s a volatile motherfucker when he’s drunk. Jesus, there was this one time we were in Florida, and I don’t even remember what I said, but he went all quiet and broody. The conversation moved on, and then out of nowhere he just ran in front of me, looked me dead in the eyes, and said: “Fuck. You.” Just like that.
> 
> LAVESQUE: I was closer with Lovepunch! then, and I remember Lou Ellen being really vocal about her dislike of Nico. I asked something once, something along the lines of, “why do you hate him so much?”, and she said, “he’s toxic for Will.” At the time, it was like, “what do you mean? That’s my brother you’re talking about, watch your tone.” In retrospect, I get it. He was all over the place. Will flew as straight as they came, but with Nico, he was less reserved, more willing to smoke or drink questionable things.
> 
> LA RUE: Later that week, maybe the next day, I said, “dude, why did you say that? That wasn’t cool, that hurt,” and he was all, “ehhh, I was probably just fucking with you.” He didn’t remember.

**_???_ **

“Get your hands off me,” Nico slurred out once his world stopped spinning, though the words felt heavy on his tongue and came out as a vague groan of protest.

“I don’t want to see you here again tonight,” the bartender warned, and with one final shove, got Nico outside. Then they shut the door with a resounding slam.

“Fuck you anyway,” Nico gasped, stumbling to regain his balance and sagging against the side of the building. Nausea spinning in his bones, he jerked himself away from the wet brick wall and staggered weakly down the street.

A teenager strode by him warily, their eyes cast down. Nico felt a flare of drunken rage clear his senses, and with a growl, he grabbed the teen by the shoulders to slam them into the nearest vertical surface: a steel fence.

Just as quickly as it came, the anger dissipated into smoke, and Nico wrenched himself away to continue going— where? Anywhere but here.

Feet slapped against wet pavement behind him. The teenager had run.

Nico lurched to the fence and leaned against it as he vomited the night’s (day’s) drinking binge. He coughed and retched and couldn’t fucking breathe and he was suffocating on his own spit and _he couldn’t he couldn’t_ — until he could. He managed to separate himself from the mess before collapsing against the fence with a desperate gasp. Just his luck, that he sat in a puddle.

The frustration was unbearable. His mind was in turmoil, and the alcohol made him feel like shit. He screamed; a coarse, guttural sound that broke into a whimper, and then a sob, and then—

his fist pounding painfully against his knees, vision blurry from the drinking and the tears—

“FUCK!” he slammed his head backwards against the metal lattice.

Kicked out from yet another bar. Kicked out from Will’s life. Kicked out of his entire social group. No, that’s not true. He picked a fight with a stranger. He hit Will. He turned his friends against him. Afraid of failure, his _ass_ ; he was exactly what they said he was. An egomaniac. A failed celebrity. The messiah of rock turned to a commoner. What had he earned?

_A hand on his shoulder, shaking him, wild, insistent._

Nothing.

_“Nico!”_

> **Excerpt from _Class of 2001: The Halfbloods, 1999-2010 — An Oral History_ by Malcolm Pace (Dey St. Books, 2017)**
> 
> ZHANG: The night I met Nico? Oh. Well, it’s nothing too exciting. It was… New Year’s, ’98. My now-wife, she was with him and the boys. We were all at the Beauregard’s on Thirty-Eighth for a party. I think Silena [Beauregard, ex-frontwoman of Lovepunch!] had recently dumped someone shitty, and her friends wanted to invite the whole damn scene to celebrate. I mean, never mind that it was already New Year’s… I won’t pretend to know what went through people’s heads. But anyway, Nico probably noticed my staring— Hazel’s beautiful now, she was beautiful then. So Nico comes up to me, and this lanky guy in skinny jeans and a leather jacket comes up to you, you don’t necessarily have anywhere to run. He comes up to me, and he goes—

**_December 31, 1997 – 18 years old  
  
_ **

“Name’s Nico,” he drawled, blowing smoke in Frank’s face. He pronounced his name sharply, or he enunciated the syllables, or something. The effect was not dissimilar to stabbing one’s gums with a toothpick. Frank shifted uncomfortably on the spot.

 _Ni-co_.

> ZHANG: I introduced myself, we shot the shit for a little bit, then he said— what did he say? He said—

“You play pool?”

Frank eyed the other man warily. “Yeah.”

Nico didn’t miss a beat.

“You wanna play me?”

> ZHANG: And the first thing he said _after_ I agreed was—

“You are about to get fucked in the ass, my friend.” Nico smirked, already turning to the rack of cue sticks behind him.

> ZHANG: And then I got fucked in the ass.
> 
> Me: Sounds like quite the first meeting. Would you say that left a lasting impression?
> 
> ZHANG: What, are you asking if I resent Nico? Over a pool game?
> 
> Me: Not necessarily.
> 
> ZHANG, bashfully: Ah, well. I’m quick to defend him. Listen, there are a great many things to resent Nico over, but I have nothing but love for him. Anybody else who really knows him would say the same thing. 

**_February 2, 2001 – 22 years old_ **

“Going forward in the night, laa la la-la-la, shining bright— come on, come on, get our hips— just the four of us, we can make it if we try,” Percy sang off-key and horribly, but that didn’t stop him from dry-humping Jason or belting out Bill Withers at the top of his lungs. Jason humped Leo in tandem with Percy’s movements, while Nico stood at the front, ignoring Leo’s hands groping at his crotch.

“Don’t waste tape, boys,” Annabeth said distractedly, busy writing talking points onto a napkin from the diner they’d eaten breakfast in. Nico made grabby hands for it. Obligingly, she scribbled one last bullet point down and let him snatch it from her to read.

Beside them, Will waved the camcorder around wildly. “What else are we supposed to do while we wait?”

“Remove your hand from my penis,” requested Nico, dryly, because how else was he supposed to ask Leo to go away.

“Or what?”

“Or I make you interview with me.”

Leo quickly put 6 feet between them.

Annabeth frowned. “BBC Scotland still asked for two people.”

Will put the camcorder back in its case and took a brave step forward, stopping next to Nico. “I’ll do it.”

Nico patted the blond’s ass in thanks.

> **Excerpt from “Nico di Angelo comes out!” by P. Jennings – _The Advocator_ , August 2015 issue**
> 
> Certainly, clips of the Halfbloods from their 2001 self-made documentary, _En Route_ , show wholesome, fraternity-like bonding: there’s handholding, ass-grabbing, sweaty dogpiles, lip-locking, and plenty of hugging. Through it all, however, there’s loud, loud pining that’s almost painful to watch.
> 
> “Me and Will, we kind of started seeing each other in ’96, a little before he joined the band. I was already in a band with Jason and Leo where we just played Velvet Underground covers, and Will was my friend from when we were like, 6, but we didn’t actually become official until 2003... It was like, I knew he’d been playing bass for two years, and one night, I just started saying, ‘Will, you gotta join our band.’ He was pretty hesitant— didn’t want our friendship to get ruined by the band or vice versa— but he said yes, eventually.”
> 
> I note that he recently said yes to something else too, what with the big news from a few weeks ago. At that, di Angelo offers a brief smile.
> 
> “Yeah.” Is that red tinging his cheeks? “We’re getting married.”

**_March 5, 2016 – 37 years old  
  
_ **

“Big day, big day.”

Nico made no move to reply, unable to tear his eyes away from his image in the mirror. Behind him, Percy closed the bathroom door.

They were at Jason’s place, having all slept— or not slept, in Leo’s case— over after Nico’s bachelor party. Wracked with nerves, Nico was holed up in the master bathroom, dressed to the nines in a white tux that felt suffocating.

Percy looked him up and down in the mirror.

“You look good,” he offered.

Nico swallowed. “Thanks.”

They fell into an awkward silence. Percy didn’t look away from Nico’s reflection. Maybe it was easier that way. Certainly, it was easier for Nico.

“You know…” Percy trailed off, his gaze drifting down to where Nico was absentmindedly fidgeting with his engagement ring. “I don’t regret it. And I’m sorry I ever put that idea in your head.”

Nico froze in place. After a moment, his fingers twitched, unable to stay still, and he took a deep breath.

“That was over twenty years ago.” His voice came out— steady, surprisingly. “Who we were and what we did at fifteen hardly matters now.”

“I never apologized.”

“There was never any need to.” Nico finally turned. Looked at a point beyond Percy’s right ear.

Felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Nico,” Percy said softly, ducking his head slightly to place the full weight of those devastating, _devastating_ green eyes on Nico. “I stringed you along because I didn’t know what I wanted. And while I’m really happy that you and Will finally got things together—”

“Percy—”

“No, I knowingly added years to your pain. I’m sorry.”

Nico floundered.

“Thank you.”

Then, to lighten the decidedly uncomfortable mood:

“You can pay me back by finally footing that 7k bill from Vegas.”

**_January 1, 2004 – Interlude: Percy  
  
_ **

Percy looked down at the hotel bill. Even through sunglasses, the number circled roughly at the bottom of the page was blinding. The hotel clerk across the front desk cleared their throat. Percy didn’t move. He registered few things, focused as he was on the piece of paper in his hands: the stench of cigarettes that permeated from the air, the low thrum of the ginormous crowd moving through the first-floor casino despite the early hour, the candy-sweet tickle of ventilation above his head. Typical Vegas.

In his ear was monotonous ringing as he tried to get Annabeth on the line. Funny, Annabeth’s ringtone seemed to be getting louder and louder, though he thought he was imagining it—

“ _Perseus Jackson_ ,” Annabeth said sharply, storming into view.

Oh, no.

Sheepishly, Percy lowered the phone from his ear and winced, turning to fully face his girlfriend.

“Annabeth,” he said weakly, “funny seeing you here.”

“ _Seven thousand, five hundred dollars_ ,” she replied coldly, then stuck a hand in her purse to bring out her wallet and brandish a black credit card at the hotel clerk. There was a ring on her left hand.

Percy gulped. Looked down at the invoice again. “Six thousand, five hundred, to the nearest hundredth.” Why was there a ring on her left hand.

Smiling winningly, Annabeth said to the clerk, “my sincerest apologies. Please accept our 15% tip as extra recompense for the damages wrought by our client.”

“Is that from the label?”

Annabeth’s smile turned to a withering glare as she snapped her gaze to meet his. “You think the label is happy enough with the band now to do this for you? The extra _thousands_ are going to come out of Nico’s pocket.”

Percy felt nauseated— or, at least, more nauseated than he originally felt.

“Oh,” he said, barely recognizing his voice for how small it came out. He looked down again. There was a ring on his left hand, too. Why was there a ring on his left hand. “ _Oh_.”

“Oh, indeed.” Annabeth furiously completed the transaction, her movements jerky, yet still she managed another smile at the clerk. “Have a great day.”

There was nothing quite like a girlfriend’s— fiancée’s? wife’s?— wrath to brutally sober a guy up.

**_March 5, 2016 – 37 years old  
  
_ **

Percy’s face broke into a radiant smile.

Nico finally exhaled, relief blooming pleasantly in his lungs. A two-decade weight finally gone from his shoulders— just the kind of red balloon he needed today.

> By J. Parsons – GQ Staff Writer
> 
> 2 June 2016
> 
> **Getting clean: Nico di Angelo opens up about sobriety 10 years later**
> 
> “It was awful; I was awful,” says the Halfbloods frontman Nico di Angelo of his now-infamous fight for sobriety.
> 
> Continue reading here

**_October 27, 2004 – 25 years old  
  
_ **

“Get some rest, Nico, you’ve been drinking since 10 AM.”

“I’m fucking fine,” Nico spat as viciously as he could, which admittedly, was not very viciously, seeing as how he was being sentenced to lie down on the living room couch with his head propped up on two pillows. The world swam dizzyingly.

Will tucked the corner of the blanket under his back. “I’m turning on the television, okay? Get angry at commercials and fall asleep, or something.”

“Fuck TV,” he muttered, but reluctantly let the sound of infomercials wash over him. Distantly, he heard the kitchen faucet begin to run. Will was probably doing the dishes. He closed his eyes.

Was this what his life had come to? Six years of work down the drain. Drinking his off-tour days away. Being all domestic with a _guy_ , fuck the decades of friendship between them. God, he was losing his mind. Considering how vital his sanity was to his profession, Nico treated it like shit. He just got _drunk_.

No, that wasn’t quite right.

Suddenly, he found himself in the kitchen, plastering himself across Will’s back.

Will got his soapy hands on Nico’s shirt to fend him off, and the next thing Nico knew, he was shoving the blond roughly to the side and throwing him to the ground in a dramatic spray of broken ceramics and dust. Uncurling his hand, Nico slapped at the counter and pushed more dishes to the ground. They clattered and broke around Will’s stunned body.

He didn’t even remember what they were fighting about. Were they fighting?

Slowly, the roar of blood in his ears subsided enough for him to hear their mismatched, heavy breathing. Will’s eyes were wide in shock and fury and fear and something completely indecipherable.

He’d never done that before. Raised his voice, jokingly threatened Will with harm, sure, but never had Nico resorted to physical violence. The world blurred at its edges, oversaturated and too-warm-too-warm, the sunset streaming in through the kitchen windows.

He blurted out the first thing that came to his head.

“I’m— I need a fucking drink.”

Will was silent.

Then:

“You need to stay the fuck away from me.”

Nico heard himself let out a mirthless laugh. He felt his stomach roll—eating nothing was probably not a good thing— and pushed off the counter, striding towards the front door to shove his feet in his boots and grab his leather jacket from its hook. He had no control over his limbs. The left pocket was heavy— good, wallet, need that for the absolute fucking bender he was committing to— and the right one was not. Whatever. He didn’t need his phone, for wherever he was going.

**_August 3, 2003 – 24 years old  
  
_ **

“You should get going,” Annabeth said as soon as Nico emerged from the hotel bathroom, a rough towel wrapped around his waist. The windows had been opened, and there were wet paper towels on the floor where Nico had made his… mess. Annabeth looked away from her cellphone and critically eyed him up and down.

Then she nodded, satisfied, and gestured at the clothes laid out on the bed.

“Where’d you get this,” Nico asked warily, padding over to pick up the top-most fabric— a green work shirt with “US GARBAGE COMPANY” emblazoned across the chest pocket.

“It’s from when Percy did that thing in junior year,” answered Annabeth, vaguely, because why on Earth should Nico expect a straight answer from his manager.

There was no question of whether or not it would fit, which irked him. The pants were his, though, and relatively clean from their last laundry cycle. Sighing, he slipped them on, displeased to find them looser than he remembered.

“Here, belt.” Annabeth unfurled a black thing in her hand with a flourish. Nico scowled and snatched it out of her grip, muttering profanities under his breath as he messily tucked the shirt in and slid the belt through the belt loops.

He walked over to the full-length mirror near the door. “I look like a fucking plumber.”

“A sexy plumber,” Annabeth’s attention had gone back to her phone. “Not like Mario.” She paused thoughtfully, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. “Still Italian, though.”

“Fuck you,” came Nico’s automatic response.

It was nearly 2 in the morning when Nico found himself waiting outside the Rolling Stone journalist’s door. Five hours late. Fuck. He hoped the guy wasn’t sleeping.

He knocked again.

**_September 11, 2001 – 22 years old  
  
_ **

The door opened with a loud, resounding bang.

“Will, wake the fuck up.”

“What,” Will mumbled, eyes still shut.

“The fucking World Trade Center just fell.”

* * *

[1] Coleman Bark’s mistranslation doesn’t do the quote justice, but it’s the easily digestible English version that, like, _Brad Pitt_ has tattooed on himself. According to Quora (of all things, I know), the quote goes: "Beyond Islam and unbelief there is a 'desert plain.' For us, there is a 'passion' in the midst of that expanse. The knower [of God] who reaches there will prostrate [in prayer]. (For) there is neither Islam nor unbelief, nor any 'where' (in) that place."

[2] The Feed SBS. “The Strokes’ own Albert Hammond Jr,” YouTube. 15 August 2018, https://youtu.be/t5rxnx17TL4

[3] Jason Cohen. “England’s creaming...,” _Spin Magazine_ 78, no. 11 (2001): 35-36. https://books.google.ca/books?id=m-qexhnZaukC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[4] Lizzy Goodman, Meet Me in the Bathroom (New York: Harper Collins, 2017)


	2. human sadness

The New York Times

_NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001_

**U.S. ATTACKED**

**_HIJACKED JETS DESTROY TWIN TOWERS AND HIT PENTAGON IN DAY OF TERROR[1]_ **

> **Buildings Burn and Fall as Onlookers Search for Elusive Safety – R.N King**
> 
> It kept getting worse. The horror arrived in episodic bursts of chilling disbelief, signified first by trembling floors, sharp eruptions, cracked windows. There was the actual unfathomable realization of a gaping, flaming hold in first one of the tall towers, and then the same thing all over again in its twin. There was the merciless sight of bodies helplessly tumbling out, some of them in flames.
> 
> Finally, the mighty towers themselves were reduced to nothing. Dense plumes of smoke raced through the downtown avenues, coursing between the buildings, shaped like tornadoes on their sides.
> 
> Every sound was cause for alarm. People scrambled for their lives, but they didn’t know where to go. Should they go north, south, east, west? Stay outside, go indoors? People hid beneath cars and each other. Some contemplated jumping into the river. A plane appeared overhead. Was another one coming? No, it was a flyover jet. But was it friend or enemy? What did they want?

**_August 3, 2003 – 24 years old_ **

“What do you want.”

The journalist— Paul was his name, wasn’t it? Paul… Blowfish. He didn’t look happy in the slightest to see Nico.

“You,” Nico gestured awkwardly, “still wanna get food? Or,” he floundered at the other man’s inscrutable expression, “we could have breakfast tomorrow, or something. I know it’s late and I’m late, uh.”

Paul squinted at him. Opened his mouth, probably to say something cutting, like _let’s not and say we did_. Closed it. Opened it again to take a deep breath.

“Give me 10 minutes and meet me downstairs,” he replied, in lieu of acknowledging anything Nico had just said.

Huh.

The door slammed in his face.

> **Excerpt from “Wasted (Time): the Halfbloods” by P. Blofis – _Rolling Stone_ , September 2003 issue[2]**
> 
> I’m too fucking old to be waiting around on some egomaniacal 24-year-old who’s flexing his self-importance after studying Chapter Two of Rockstar 101, by Mick Jagger. And come to think of it, Jagger was only twenty minutes late when I met him for a profile in the mid-eighties.
> 
> At least now I won’t feel awkward asking di Angelo about his drinking; if I’d had to bring it up at ten over a pleasant dinner with a couple of glasses of Burgundy inside me, I might have felt bad. Now I’m almost relishing the prospect of making him uncomfortable.
> 
> “I never _feel_ so mentally altered,” he ventures. Yeah, yeah. He tries to stare me down, and normally he could, but it’s not working because I’m in such a bad mood I can stare right back until finally he blinks. After that he seems to register my poisonous mood and apologizes for being late. He starts talking to fill the silence. “I’ve been doing interviews all day,” he says. “The press can be so annoying. They jerk you off with one hand and smack you with the other.” (The British press has always loved his debauched rock-star ways; in naming di Angelo to its “Cool List,” the _NME_ remarked that “nobody holds a half-drunk bottle of Heineken quite so stylishly.”)
> 
> “It’s like an inner struggle for me, between saying I don’t give a shit and trying to make it work. You want to do the right thing, but I’m sick of people thinking I’m difficult.”
> 
> I suggest that making people wait five hours probably doesn’t predispose them to be sympathetic. “I’m really sorry, I fell asleep,” he says. “It’s just been a bad day. People in our camp are making me feel bad about doing it the way I want to do it. I feel like I’ve given up a lot of my fantasies, just in terms of how we do things. I just want to do things differently, and to a lot of people that’s annoying. I like weird stuff. I always hoped if we had a big success it would be on our own terms. I thought I earned that much.”

**_March 15, 2000 – 21 years old_ **

“So, how long have you been fucking her?” Nico asked bluntly as soon as the door closed behind his father.

“You’ve got some nerve—”

“I mean, she can’t have turned 18 until this year—”

“— coming in here, pretending you’re welcome on my property—”

“— if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’ve been fucking her since she was a kid—”

Nico heard the slap before he really felt it, and he found himself staring at the wall of his father’s achievements before he could even blink.

Hayden sighed tiredly and brought the offending hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. “Now look at what you’ve done.”

Slowly, Nico turned his head back to look at his father. His left cheek felt overexposed and sensitive to the air. This wasn’t new, per se, but it’d been— years. Suddenly, he was simultaneously 12 and 21, and he was reminded of the prison the Upper East Side had always been.

“Nico.” His father gently put a hand on his shoulder. “Being contrarian and rebellious only makes things difficult. You understand, don’t you?”

Mute, Nico nodded— almost imperceptibly.

“Let’s start over, then,” his father gestured to the guest seat across the large mahogany desk.

Nico wanted to scream. Storm out of the building. Coming here was a mistake, a goddamn mistake—

He sat down quietly, and his father casually followed suit, unbuttoning his blazer.

“So,” Hayden folded his hands neatly at the edge of the desk, “you said you came here for business.”

Untrusting of his own voice, Nico nodded again. His father exhaled, the audible huff signifying his displeasure.

Nico flinched pre-emptively. “Yes,” he tried to say, then cleared his throat and tried again. It didn’t come out as wobbly the second time, which he considered a success.

Hayden raised his eyebrows, a silent gesture to continue.

“My band.” Nico said. “We want a record deal.”

“What makes you think your band is good enough to sign?”

Nico had been around the industry enough to know this was his chance to present their demos. Without ceremony, he reached into his pocket and pulls out a USB drive, shaking it for good measure before placing it in front of his father.

“There’s a bidding war going on for us,” he stated plainly. “RCA and Empire are giving us good options, considering how we’ve only recently started out. But Hades could do more. Get us farther. We want to own our album once it’s done.”

Hayden appraised the unassuming USB drive with an uninterested eye. He picked it up between his thumb and index finger, twirled it onto his palm. Then he dropped it back on Nico’s side of the table.

“I don’t actually care,” Hayden admitted, folding his hands on top of the desk again. “You think you can waltz in here after six years of hostility, insinuate that I’m a predator, and ask for favours? María had one job and she failed at it.”

“Because of you, María is dead,” Nico blurt out before he could filter it out mentally.

Hayden didn’t even bat an eye. “And now you accuse me of killing your mother.”

Nico swallowed his anger.

His father sighed again, clucked his tongue contemplatively. “Say, hypothetically, that I do this. What’s in it for me?”

_Check_.

“Myrtle Wilson, Daisy Buchanan, and a yellow Rolls-Royce.”

He waited to see the dots connect.

Hayden’s eyes flashed dangerously. “You want me to buy your silence.”

_Mate_.

Shrugging, Nico slid his phone out of his other pocket and placed it on the table, next to the abandoned USB drive. “I have Lou Ellen on speed dial. I’m sure the Blackstones would love to bring you down.”

His father reached across the table to grasp the USB drive again. “When did you get friendly with the press?”

Nico didn’t answer.

“Will Solace,” Hayden concluded simply. Threw the drive up in the air and caught it. “Jason is in your band too.”

“I’ve kept quiet so far, haven’t I?”

“Indeed.” He hummed. “Beryl was a lousy fuck.”

“And Bianca was a kid. Are we done stating the obvious?”

“You don’t want to know why I did it? God knows you’ve only been asking me for answers the past decade.”

“I want a record deal.”

Instead of responding immediately, Hayden stood, buttoning his blazer, the drive still in his palm. “Extortion.” He turned to face the open window. “Annabeth Chase drives a hard bargain, using you like this.”

Nico stared at his back.

Hayden turned back around, his free hand extended. “Consider it done. My lawyers will be in touch with yours.”

Exhaling, Nico reached out— but not to shake. Instead, he placed a folded piece of paper and a pen in the outstretched palm.

Amused silence.

“Can’t trust a handshake behind closed doors,” Nico gestured to the sheet of paper. On it, a disclaimer was written in Annabeth’s neat handwriting, and a razor-straight line cut through the bottom of the page, waiting to be signed. “You taught me that.”

The smallest of twitches at the corners of Hayden’s mouth.

He signed in silence.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Nico said, once he stood and tucked the folded agreement safely inside his boxers, relishing in the slide of victory resting against his hip.

Then, over his shoulder, one last gloating blow to his father before he left. “Your tie’s crooked.”

> **Human Condition**
> 
> Chthonic Spells
> 
> _Produced by_ Chthonic Records
> 
> _Album_ Wretched Things
> 
> **Genius annotation 2 contributors**
> 
> “Never wanna spell it out / I just want to say that it is all my fault / I could never spit it out / ‘I don’t wanna fix your tie’”
> 
> We learn throughout the song that the protagonist is abused, shown through the metaphor of the tie. Here, the protagonist wants to fight back, but they find themselves unable to, because they are conditioned to take the blame. In the music video to this song, these lyrics align with Zag failing to escape prison, and then we see soldiers fleeing to Dunkirk, which…
> 
> More

-

> **Excerpt from “Inside Chthonic Spells’ New Video ‘Human Condition’” by G. Ayres – _Rolling_ _Stone_ , May 2015 issue**
> 
> Leave it to Nico di Angelo’s subconscious to create one of the most bizarre, cryptic, yet moving videos of the year.
> 
> “Like _Inception_ ,” di Angelo says, referencing Christopher Nolan’s 2010 movie, “dreams within dreams. The concept seemed fitting. You can’t make sense of it, so you play music like the world is ending.”
> 
> The psychedelic video is a 13-minute long head trip, combining various different vignettes and snapshots of desperation, survivalism, and existentialism, all connected by the song and clever editing by Alex Fu. The duo performs the track live with their touring band in the video, and their performance is dramatized by an overarching storyline interspersed with stock clips of war and sex.
> 
> “We wanted to do something hard to see all at one time, like a kid being screwed up by his dad, by drugs and other things, and cut that up so that you only get images of it,” explains guitarist/synths/noisemaker Zachary “Zag” Hainsworth in his polite, English accent. “Then, there’s all these other scenes of life, where the kid is grown, where he’s in love, and you can never quite tell if he’s only happy in his dreams or not.”

**_October 27, 2004 – 25 years old_ **

_A hand on his shoulder, shaking him, wild, insistent._

Nobody, nothing, no one, nowhere, no—

_“Nico!”_

His name. Who would want to call his name now?

_“Nico di Angelo, wake_ the fuck up, or so help me—!”

“Huh?” Nico spluttered awake and jerked up.

“Jesus Christ!” Will flopped backwards onto the carpet. “Ow.”

“Will?”

“That’s me.” The blond sat up, concern etched in his brow. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay? Are _you_ okay?”

Will blinked. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

_Chest to back, soapy hands gripping his collar, anger and self-hatred and despair then a twist and a shove, unwashed plates broken and suspended midair and scattered around the body on the ground, oversaturated sunlight too warm too warm a bar a drink a drink a drink a drink a drink a drink a drink_

Flinching hard, Nico scrambled to the other end of the couch and put as much distance between them as he could.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to choke out. “I’m—”

“No, Nico,” Will reached out. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t real.”

Nico worked his jaw. Curled his body in as tight as he could bear. Slowly, he put his head on his knees and tried to get his heart to stop racing.

“Breathe for me,” he heard, “breathe with me, come on.”

And so, he breathed in. In, two, three. Out, two, three.

In, two, three.

Out. Two. Three.

The roaring in his ears subsided somewhat.

“Keep going.”

In—

“You know I’d never hurt you if I could help it,” Nico’s head snapped up, the words falling out of him in a rush.

“I know.” Will’s gaze softened, but he looked no less worried.

Nico swallowed, pushing through the alarms in his brain. “But I’ve been hurting you all this fucking time.”

“Nico,”

“No, let me do this.”

Determination rushed through him in shudders. Or maybe it was fear. Dread.

Will kneeled closer to him and laid a gentle hand on his elbow. “I have never blamed you,” he said, “and I never will. Not for this.”

Still shaking, Nico let himself relax enough to unwind his arms from his knees and clasp Will’s hands in his. Will was an anchor. He was light and warmth and something terrible and something beautiful all at once and—he made everything okay.

Nico closed his eyes, nodding slightly to himself and relishing the feeling of Will’s hands in his. Countless times he had held these hands. Countless nights of being cared for and shown that he matters. Countless, infinite, and all the other metaphors that could possibly express the multitudes of his emotions. All he had left to say were three words.

Deep breath in. In, two, three. Out, two—

“I love you.”

He met Will’s eyes. They were shining.

“I fucking _love_ you,” he repeated, the words bringing a dizzying rush to his head, “and I’m going to rehab to fucking prove it.”

(Will’s smile was enough to power the sun.)

> **Excerpt from “Inside Chthonic Spells’ New Video ‘Human Condition’” by G. Ayres – _Rolling_ _Stone_ , May 2015 issue**
> 
> When asked about their inspirations, di Angelo cites his own cold-turkey dreams from rehab, while Hainsworth offers his love of Homer and Attic tragedy. The half-brothers share troubled childhoods, and the video serves, in di Angelo’s words, as a “dramatized, kind of autobiographical depiction of [life before and after we knew about each other].”
> 
> Despite Chthonic Spells being a two-piece band with one vision, each member of the touring band gets a flashback and a separate story. Frontman di Angelo stars as the adult version of the protagonist, simultaneously cavorting on a beach with his long-term boyfriend Will Solace and suffering at the hands of an overbearing father. Hainsworth has a parallel arc where he’s shown trying to break out of a World War II prison. Theodore Xander Papillon, Hainsworth’s childhood friend and touring bassist/keyboardist, is an office worker stuck under the thumb of unrelenting duty. Touring percussionist Meghan Aarons is a successful businesswoman with a failing, violent relationship.
> 
> Beyond the look and feel of the work, however, di Angelo says a more existential theme connects the ideas in “Human Condition”: a quote from 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi, “Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field/I’ll meet you there,” is the foundation of the whole song. It’s a line he resonates with so much that he paraphrased it for the chorus.
> 
> “That line is an artful way of describing the,” di Angelo gestures broadly, “the intensity and longing and beauty and hope and desperation and the impossibility of total understanding of death and life and love and the beyond and the nothing and the everything. Like, that first time, that feeling, how we felt after 9/11, the sheer gravitas of the situation and the subsequent war on terror that’s really just become a domestic war of humanity against the very ideals our society upholds. It’s… transcendental.”

**_May 19, 2015 – Interlude: Malcolm_ **

“It’s funny that you should mention that quote. Nico was just telling me the other day about the Rolling Stone article covering his video,” Will said, drumming his fingers on the table. “9/11 was as much a part of it as it is of everything he makes, I suppose.”

An exhausted Malcolm took a sip of his drink. Starbucks Iced Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte with nonfat milk, because he was particular about the sheer amount of time spent and coffee consumed from this goddamn chain. They were in one such location now because of him, but luckily, Will was partial to their hot chocolates. Silver linings. He forced himself to focus.

“What happened that day to you in particular, that Nico was so heavily affected?”

Will hummed. “Well, as you know, it was a beautiful day. Sun shining, everything. I was in my apartment with Nico, Nineteenth and Second Avenue. We saw the towers fall from our window.”

> **Excerpt from _Class of 2001: The Halfbloods, 1999-2010 — An Oral History_ by Malcolm Pace (Dey St. Books, 2017)[3]**
> 
> DI ANGELO: Our view was shit. The only thing you could see was the Twin Towers.
> 
> CHASE: Percy had stayed over the night before. When I woke up, around 10 or so, I found him glued to the television. Nearly smacked him for not waking me up earlier.
> 
> SOLACE: It was so weird, seeing it from far away. I was only up in time to see the North Tower fall.
> 
> DI ANGELO: I couldn’t sleep. Sat by the window chain-smoking, and then at, what, 9 AM? The South Tower was on fire. I was like, “shit, what the fuck?” Couldn’t believe it was even real. I think I sat there for an hour just staring, waiting. Woke Will up as soon as I registered that the first one even fell.
> 
> GRACE: You could almost still see [the North Tower] standing, even with all the smoke in the horizon, even though it was falling, and then all of a sudden, it just… wasn’t there. It was so unreal. You’re so shocked that you don’t even realize you’re in shock. The whole thing fell. The sound was delayed. That was the weirdest.
> 
> SOLACE: Both Nico and I felt the urge to find all of our friends and make sure they were safe, even though logically we knew nobody would be near the area. We were out on the streets and it was paranoia everywhere. Always a cellphone going off, people running the other way because they thought it was a bomb.
> 
> DI ANGELO: It was… mayhem.

**_September 11, 2001 – 22 years old_ **

“Holy fuck,” Nico wheezed, coming to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. “Holy fuck!”

“Nico!” Will caught his elbow and staggered to a stop, looking up. The top of the remaining tower was moving incrementally in the skyline.

Around them, time had come to a stop. Around them, people had frozen, mouths gaping, fingers pointing to the sky. Around them, the world had ended.

Nico felt the grip on his elbow tighten.

Will.

“Jason,” he heard, and that was all it took to kick Nico into action.

> **Excerpt from _Class of 2001: The Halfbloods, 1999-2010 — An Oral History_ by Malcolm Pace (Dey St. Books, 2017)[4]**
> 
> RODRIGUEZ: I was in Brooklyn. We watched it on the roof, and then we walked down to where you could see Manhattan from the water. It was all, you know, Hasidic Jews and Puerto Rican kids rolling blunts, and everyone was all just in it together. Then we went to McCarren Park and hung out on the grass, and later that night we went to Union Pool, but there was nobody there, so we went back home, got really high, played house music. And danced. It was the Prince “1999” kinda thing, you know? The world’s gonna end, so let’s fucking party.
> 
> LA RUE: There was this forlorn and depressed atmosphere. I remember going to Odessa— it was really crowded, and everyone was just drinking themselves stupid. There was palpable, collective grief. I don’t even remember how I got back to the East Village. There was literally this toxic haze that was just sitting over all of downtown. On Avenue A, you couldn’t see five feet in front of you.
> 
> GRACE: I was still living in the apartment I used to share with Nico, and he and Will kind of showed up in the thick of it.

**_September 11, 2001 – 22 years old_ **

“Grace!” Nico pounded on the door desperately. Will rang the doorbell again. “Jason, open up!”

After yet another moment of painful silence, there was a flutter of movement from the curtains covering the window beside the front door. It wrenched open a second later.

“My God, you guys,” Jason breathed, reaching across the threshold to pull them inside.

Nico turned around once he was in the foyer, looking back at Jason appraisingly. The blond was disheveled, half-dressed, covered by a ratty grey bathrobe. His glasses were missing, and his gaze was wild.

“Are you okay?” Will blurted out— rather unnecessarily, but Nico wasn’t going to smartass him. They were all irrational today.

Jason let out a mirthless laugh. “Only scared out of my fucking mind.”

Nico worked his jaw. Tried to find something to say. His mind was a chaotic jumble of relief and fear, and the knowledge that Jason was okay did little to assuage it.

Sensing this somehow, Will took Nico’s hands in his and—

**_March 5, 2016 – 37 years old_ **

— slid a ring onto the fourth finger of Nico’s left hand. The gold band gleamed under the warm lights. Unseen was the word “sunshine” in Will’s messy chicken scratch writing, engraved on the inside. Nico could almost imagine the word branding itself on his skin.

He pulled his hand away carefully, then reached for the matching band: silver with gold accents, and “death boy” written on the inside instead.

Will quirked an eyebrow. Asked a wordless question and—

**_September 11, 2001 – 22 years old_ **

— rubbed comforting circles onto Nico’s skin and—

**_March 5, 2016 – 37 years old_ **

— offered his left hand. The ring slid home easily.

Nico raised Will’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the metal.

A silent promise.

**_September 11, 2001 – 22 years old_ **

He was always better with words than Nico, anyhow.

**_February 4, 2001 – Interlude: Percy and Annabeth_ **

“Why are you saying that to me? You’re supposed to be nice to me. I pay you to be nice to me.”

“First off, you don’t pay me shit— I pay myself. Secondly: you’re insufferable.”

Percy stuck out his lower lip in a pout and widened his eyes behind the camcorder. Annabeth rolled her eyes. They were on a boat to Ireland, seated across from each other in a near-deserted cafeteria; there was no escape from the sad-puppy-dog look.

“ _One_ Q and A on tape,” he wheedled. “Pleeeease?”

Annabeth pinched the bridge of her nose in faux-annoyance, the corners of her lips already turning up in a small smile. “Just once. And then you leave me alone to work?”

“Promise,” Percy lied with his most charming smile. Annabeth could see right through him.

> **An excerpt from the fan-made descriptive captions to _En Route_ , a homemade documentary on The Halfbloods during their 2001 Tour - © user @HBCaptions on thehalfbloods.com/forums**
> 
> “Here we go,” _Jackson says, then switches to an announcer voice._ “A Q and A with the one… the only…. Annabeth Chase!”
> 
> _The screen shows Chase seated at a table against the backdrop of a nearly empty cafeteria. Her signature Yankees cap can be seen at the corner of the frame. She looks on in exasperation._
> 
> “First question: Who is your favourite Halfblood?”
> 
> “I don’t play favourites. Next question.”
> 
> _Jackson hums thoughtfully._ “Next question: if you had to pick a Halfblood to serenade you badly, who would you pick?”
> 
> “You know,” _says Chase after pretending to mull her answer over._ “Jason, Nico, and Will sing quite well. I think I’d pick Leo to serenade me badly.”
> 
> _Jackson squawks loudly in indignation. The audio peaks._
> 
> “Here’s a question for you,” _Chase smirks_.
> 
> “Shoot.”
> 
> “Do you want to get drinks with me after tomorrow’s show?”
> 
> “We always get drinks after shows.” _Jackson replies, in a rare display of wit_.
> 
> “Is your brain made of seaweed? Do you want a date with me or not?”
> 
> _The shot blurs as the camcorder falls from Jackson’s hands. It clatters to the table, Chase’s panicked voice barely audible as she shrieks,_ “calm down, idiot!”

-

> **Excerpt from _Class of 2001: The Halfbloods, 1999-2010 — An Oral History_ by Malcolm Pace (Dey St. Books, 2017)**
> 
> JACKSON: After shit kind of settled down, we all met up. We were all talking on the phone, Nico and Will were with Jason, Leo had ended up with me and Annabeth right after lunch, like, “what are we going to do, what’s happening? Let’s go to the studio, rehearse.”
> 
> GRACE: We ended up discussing the “NYC Pigs” debacle. After what the cops were doing on the street, after the tragedy we’d just witnessed, it didn’t seem sensible to have that on the album.

**_September 11, 2001 – 22 years old_ **

“No, come on, that’s one of the best on the record,” Percy leaned over Nico to tap the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray on the coffee table.

Incredulous, Jason stared up at him from his spot on the floor. “Yeah, but this thing could make us or break us.”

Nico exhaled, glaring down at the half-empty bottle in his hands and picking at the flimsy label. “It’s just a song, it has nothing to do with—”

“Words have power, songs have power. It’s not just a song, dude,” Will plucked the bottle out of Nico’s grip and took a sip, grimacing. “This is shit.”

“You’re shit,” Nico said, making grabby hands to get the drink back. Will took another sip.

They all fell silent, nobody willing to break the inevitable news.

_Damn it_.

Nico exhaled sharply. “We already changed the album art. We might as well change the tracklist while we’re at it.”

More silence. A few reluctant nods.

He cleared his throat. “Don’t forget— we own the album. Annabeth worked her fucking ass off to get us that deal. This isn’t forever.”

****

**_August 4, 2003 – 24 years old_ **

This week was taking _forever_.

“Why does he have to be here for a goddamn _week_ ,” Nico muttered, flicking the butt of his cigarette onto the sidewalk outside of the dive bar. He patted his chest pocket, lightly brushing his fingers over “GARBAGE” before reaching in for another cigarette. Before he could bring it to his lips and light it, however, Paul— Blofis, not Blowfish— called his name and waved a hand in front of his face. Nico startled and dropped everything he was holding.

“Nico, hey,” Paul said, bending to pick the lighter up. “You’re here early.”

“You said seven.”

It was 7:05 PM.

Paul blinked. “Indeed, I did.” He straightened up and held out the lighter. “Shall we head in?”

With a mournful glance at the abandoned cigarette on the ground, Nico took the lighter and pocketed it. “Yeah.”

Paul held the door open for him. “Long day today?”

“Depends. Is this on record?” Nico walked in and waited for the journalist to join him.

“Can’t I ask how you’re doing?”

Instead of answering, Nico headed straight for the bar.

“On the record,” he said after he signalled the bartender, “I was doing shit for our next album. Artwork, promo, label things.”

Paul nodded, but didn’t bother to get his tape deck out. He asked for water.

“So, Annabeth called me earlier and said you had an answer to my earlier question.”

“The… Will Solace question,” Nico clarified cautiously. What the fuck, Annabeth.

“That.”

What the _fuck_ , Annabeth. Trapping him like this. “I’ll, uh, tell you when we start the interview,” he hedged. For a millisecond, Paul squinted suspiciously at him— but quickly returned to his usual, amicable state.

Nico looked on in dread. God fucking damn it all.

Paul took his tape deck out of his backpack and pressed RECORD.

> **Excerpt from “Wasted (Time): the Halfbloods” by P. Blofis – _Rolling Stone_ , September 2003 issue[5]**
> 
> And so begins the worst interview ever.
> 
> The thing about di Angelo is that he speaks and sways like he’s out of it, but if you stick around him long enough, you begin to realize that he is ultra-aware of everything going on around him. I tell him this.
> 
> “That’s your opinion,” he says, almost defensively. “I see myself out of my own eyes, which means I have no idea what’s going on the other way around. I just think I try to be a good person— and I fail.”
> 
> _With that, di Angelo reaches over to the tape recorder and turns it off. I look at him. He looks at me. Then I turn it back on and try to start again with something easier._
> 
> _Me: OK, so what’s your answer to the Will Solace question?_
> 
> di Angelo: Fuck you. I’m not answering that question.
> 
> _Me: What the hell?_
> 
> di Angelo: Next question.
> 
> _Me: Honestly, this has to be the worst..._
> 
> di Angelo: ... the worst interview ever?
> 
> Once again, he reaches across the table and places his dirty fingernail over the STOP button. And then he just stays in his seat, swaying and staring. I suggest stopping the interview and just having a normal conversation, but with the tape deck on. He declines.
> 
> “I just don’t have anything deep to say,” he says.
> 
> I explain that nothing deep is expected of him.
> 
> “I’ve got nothing to hide,” he says. “But what I meant a few minutes ago, if I can even recall what I was saying, is just that there’s so much shit to do, and so little time. And everything I have to say is not going to be in this one _Rolling Stone_ interview.”
> 
> The issue, he explains, is that he believes in a higher power, some call it God. And right now, that higher power is telling him that it is not the right time for him to say anything. And it won’t be time until the Halfbloods prove themselves to the world, until they do something that he terms “undeniable.”
> 
> “I’d like to just get to a point where maybe we can say something that will be matterful. That’s definitely not a word, by the way. And I look forward to the future, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
> 
> I try to ask him about specific plans for the future, but he’ll have none of it.
> 
> “Death,” he responds, and maybe he’s more sober than he’s letting on.

**_March 5, 2016 – 37 years old_ **

“Until death do us part,” Nico echoed, anticipation and nervous energy surging through his veins. Shakily, he exhaled, turning his head back to face Will.

“You may kiss,” the priest said. No sooner had the last word been spoken than Will flung his arms around Nico’s shoulders, their lips crashing together messily. It was hard to kiss when their mouths were inclined to smile, their lungs inclined to laugh with joy. Harder still to keep their hands off each other, not that they’d ever want to separate. Nico pulled his husband in closer.

_Husband_.

He surfaced for air and pressed a gentler, chaste kiss to Will’s cheek. Leaned in even more to whisper lowly in Will’s right ear. “Save some for later, husband.”

Will’s breath audibly hitched, but he quickly recovered and leaned back to kiss Nico again.

> **Excerpt from “MARRIED GAY! Exclusive wedding pics from The Halfbloods’ Nico di Angelo and Will Solace!” Daily Mail Snapchat Story – March 6, 2016**
> 
> Yesterday, two members of American rock band the Halfbloods got hitched… to each other?! This bold move comes months after gay marriage was legalized in the USA.
> 
> One brave Daily Mail reporter got close enough to sneak some exclusive photos from the ceremony. Keep reading to see opinions about the controversial event.
> 
> “It’s an act against all that God stands for,” says heartbroken, long-time Halfbloods fan Emily MacDonald. “I love Nico and Will so much, and I think they’re handsome men who could have lovely families if they so chose. But they’ve mistaken their brotherhood for something else, and I just can’t listen to them anymore.”
> 
> In contrast, another Halfbloods fan says, “I wish the happy couple all the best, and I’m proud of them for being unafraid to love.”
> 
> Exclusive photos here!

**_February 2, 2002 – Interlude: Leo_ **

The camera went off with a loud flash. Leo blinked rapidly. The room was so fucking orange, and anything that wasn’t orange was messing with his, like, feng shui. Goddamn Nico, with his, fucking, Elvis phase.

MTV was ass. Fun, kind of, sure, but _ass_. They had to pause between each segment and pose all funny. Damn, a brother just wanted to play a set and get out and let loose, you know?

He just couldn’t give a flying fuck about Courtney motherfucking Love. And, judging by the impatient twitch of Nico’s fingers as he sipped at his beer, he wasn’t the only one.

“Leo.” Jason appeared in front of his kit. He looked mildly alarmed. Well, he was as sober as he was ever going to get at this point, so that was understandable.

“Jason,” Leo imitated his tone. The camera crew were fussing over something or other. They could goof off for a bit, right?

“Look over,” the blond hissed, eyeing his right deliberately.

He looked over. There was an audience. What was so special.

“Yeeeeeesss?”

Jason pushed his glasses up his nose. “Look. _Over_. Don’t you see her?”

Her?

He glanced over again. Nobody was, like, particularly striking— oh. Oh, _no_. There was a total babe in the second row, just turning back to face their stage. Oh.

“Dibs,” he said automatically.

“What? No,” Jason squeaked— honest to God, that man— “that’s _Piper McLean_. We hooked up in London when she was doing a shoot with her dad.”

“Oh.” Bro code. Yes, that was something Leo could respect. “So… what?”

Jason gripped his guitar and kicked his Converse-clad feet at Leo’s raised platform. “What do I do,” he said, flicking his gaze over to her again.

Incredulous, Leo sat back slightly. “What the fuck, man. Just talk to her after we’re done.”

“Okay, yes, but what do I _do_.”

“What d— you ask her out for _drinks_ , dumbass,” Leo half-whispered, exasperated. “What do you think you’re gonna do, ask her to, to, like, _fraternize_?” Jason Grace was such a graceless, fucking… disaster. What the fuck.

“Maybe?”

“You’ve already fucked her, bro.”

“Not _sober_ ,”

“You’re not sober!”

“I feel sober!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Will snapped at them. Like, literally snapped his fingers. It worked embarrassingly well. Leo looked up from their conversation and saw Jason turn around. Nico was fiddling with the mic stand and shrugging uncomfortably under his blazer. The stand would probably get thrown into the audience at some point, or maybe he’d break a camera with it like he did at that one show in Mexico City. Percy was going over fingerings on the fretboard of his guitar, swaying in spot, looking lost in thought. Dangerous. Will turned back around too, and he played a few notes experimentally.

The crowd started cheering.

Nico glanced back at Leo. Cocked an eyebrow. His hair was an absolute fucking disaster. His mouth was pulled up in that too-pretty, sardonic smirk. Okay, hear him out, what if he fucked that later?

“Thanks a lot, guys,” Nico said flatly into the mic, his voice distorted by the sound effects. “We’re just sorta warming up here, I guess, we haven’t started yet. They want us to do two songs, we do what we’re told.” He thumbed at the microphone wire. “Uh, thanks again. You know this one, sing along.”

Leo knew a cue when he heard one.

> **Excerpt from _Class of 2001: The Halfbloods, 1999-2010 — An Oral History_ by Malcolm Pace (Dey St. Books, 2017)**
> 
> LAVESQUE: The MTV $2 Bill concert felt like a new kind of start. The boys were really getting famous at that point.
> 
> DI ANGELO: People tell me it was the beginning of the end, that show. I don’t know so much about that.
> 
> JACKSON: The MTV $2 Bill show was great! I felt pretty successful doing it, anyway. Nico worked with a great director and made his whole vision come true. I love that MTV let us do our thing.
> 
> ZHANG: Nico’s so cool, he didn’t give a shit about the whole fame thing. Well, growing up, he was already around famous people, so I suppose that’s got something to do with it. They were all lowkey, come to think of it. Maybe Jason was into the whole thing the most.
> 
> LA RUE: Are people saying Nico didn’t care about fame? That’s hilarious. That boy is one of the most conceited, vain bastards to walk the Earth. He probably loved that the press was fawning over him. He ate that attention up like candy.

**_August 4, 2003 – 24 years old_ **

Nico reached over to press the STOP button on Paul’s tape deck again. He jutted his chin out defiantly. Daring.

Paul frowned. “Come on, man.”

“No.”

“It can just be a conversation. No probing questions, promise.”

“I fucking said no. I’ve got nothing deep to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything deep. This is _Rolling Stone_ , not _Nature_.”

“I’ve got nothing to hide. But I meant what I said, I’ve just got nothing to say to you.”

“Why not?” But Paul finally put his tape deck back in his bag.

“’Cause,” Nico muttered, mind flying through possible excuses. Anything to get away. “Something’s telling me not to. Something, capital S. Might be God, might be, like, Zeus, I don’t know. It’s not the right time.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means I’m not telling you shit until the Halfbloods do something, fucking, undeniable. Matterful. That’s definitely not a word, by the way.”

“What?”

God, he was too fucking sober for this.

“Future’s bright,” he said, not bothering to explain the non-sequitur. Then, with dripping sardonicism: “blah, blah, blah.”

Nico picked up his beer and chugged it. Slammed the nearly empty bottle on the counter. Turned in his seat, because fuck Paul, fuck _Rolling Stone_ , fuck Annabeth, fuck the press, the media, _everything_.

He spotted Golden Tee next to the pinball machine. There.

“Anybody wanna play Golden Tee?” he asked half-heartedly. Nobody heard him. Good.

He had an idea.

> **Excerpt from “Wasted (Time): the Halfbloods” by P. Blofis – _Rolling Stone_ , September 2003 issue[6]**
> 
> Four minutes later, he returns to the table. “Never play Golden Tee when you’re drunk,” he advises.
> 
> Then he sits in my lap, kisses me seven times on the neck, and makes three lunges for my lips, connecting once. Before I can wipe dry, he is out the door, rolling himself home in a discarded wheelchair he finds abandoned outside.

* * *

[1] N.R. Kleinfield. “U.S. Attacked.” _The New York Times,_ CL no. 51874 (2001): A1.

[2] Jay McInerney. “Group Therapy,” New York Magazine. New York Magazine, 6 January 2006, https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/15495/

[3] Lizzy Goodman, Meet Me in the Bathroom (New York: Harper Collins, 2017)

[4] Lizzy Goodman, Meet Me in the Bathroom (New York: Harper Collins, 2017)

[5] Neil Strauss, “Elegantly Wasted,” Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone, 13 November 2003. https://outline.com/eGJ7DC

[6] Neil Strauss, “Elegantly Wasted,” Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone, 13 November 2003. https://outline.com/eGJ7DC


	3. off to war

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it, folks. today we tie up some loose ends, cover some topics that need to be covered, and exeunt journalist paul blofis- and you, haha- from the scene. 
> 
> thanks for having stuck with me while i clumsily tackled some inner demons through the most blunt and messy writing i've ever done. 
> 
> cheers, and without further ado, the last chapter:

**_September 18, 2003 – 24 years old_ **

“Can I sue every news media outlet?” Nico whined, head on an arm at the kitchen table, the other blindly waving around a magazine cut-out.

He heard Will walk by, gently pluck the paper from his hand, ball it up, and toss it in the trash.

“Every news media outlet ever? Sounds expensive,” Will said, shoving Nico down the bench with a well-aimed swing of his hip. “Scoot.”

Groaning, Nico squirmed further to the side. He now lay uncomfortably across the table.

Will mussed his hair gently. Then pushed his elbow (and consequently, his aching head) to the side as well. There was the sound of a bowl clattering on wood, metal clinking on glass.

“A mistake,” said Nico, intelligently. “This was a mistake.”

“Lots of things were mistakes.” Will was chewing on something crunchy. Honey Nut Cheerios, probably. “Buying two long benches instead of four chairs for our kitchen table, for example. Oh, I liked our first ‘one-night stand’. That was a good mistake. Is it still a mistake if we keep making it today?”

Nico let out a— sound. Something like _blarhdgdfg_. “There are five of us with friends over all the time. Benches are _economical_.”

“And yet, Jason, Percy, and Leo have chairs in their respective places.” More loud crunching.

With another sound (this one more like _hmmmfsdsdf_ ), Nico lifted his head up slightly. Just enough to glare at Will with one eye. “Being famous was a mistake. They always get it wrong.”

Will swallowed. Shoveled another spoonful of cheerios into his mouth before he began to speak. Christ, he could be a disgusting bastard, Nico noted fondly.

“That’s what they do.” Crunch, crunch, crunch. “They write what sells, not the truth.”

“That almost rhymed.”

“What do you know, maybe I can get a songwriting credit someday.”

> **Transcript from YouTube community closed captions for "Ode (1 st time live) - The Halfbloods @ Brooklyn”, uploaded by user Perry Leonard on 1 January 2019.**
> 
> Nico di Angelo: Under Cover. Is that what they’re saying?
> 
> Percy Jackson: *shrugs*
> 
> Nico di Angelo: Uhhh. Uh.

**_December 31, 2018 – 39 years old_ **

“I don’t remember,” Nico teased, walking around the stage. “I don’t remember _Under Cover_. What’s _Under Cover_? What’s on _Under Cover_?”

Behind him, the crowd roared with screamed answers and whistles. Nico walked up to Leo’s drum kit and leaned in, pointing the mic away. Will and Percy joined him seconds later. In the corner of his eye, he spotted Jason wandering towards the edge of the stage.

“Do we have time for anything from _Under Cover_?”

Will checked his watch. “Eleven to.”

“Damn.” He raised the mic to his mouth again. “What’s _Under Cover_?” Pointed it away again.

Percy waved his red Solo cup around. “We haven’t rehearsed anything from it in ages.”

Leo ducked in closer. “Moot point, we’ve barely rehearsed anything in general.”

Nico huffed a small laugh into the mic and backed away, turning to face the crowd again. Will and Percy returned to their spots, and Leo spun his drumsticks. “Okay, well, _I_ don’t want to play a song from _Under Cover_.”

The noise of the crowd got louder.

“Me, me, me, me, me,” he snarked. Walked to Will, where he was fiddling with his bass. “What about _my_ needs?”

Will looked up, and he was radiant. He stuck his tongue out playfully at Nico. Nico promptly stepped forward to kiss him.

The crowd went wild with screams.

> Nico di Angelo: Alright, how about a NEW song? Yeeeaaahh, let Will flex his lyrical skills. Words from the god Apollo himself, god bless. I don’t know what I’m saying, what the fuck. Thanks to him, we’ve got a new album dropping soon.
> 
> Percy Jackson: *drops his beer*
> 
> Nico di Angelo: Oops, Percy didn’t know about that. Haha, surprise!

**_February 2, 2002 - Interlude: Jason and Piper_ **

“Well, this is a surprise,” Piper smiled a lovely, lovely smile. “Jason Grace. Been a while.”

Jason tried not to look like a— fish. Ew. “A little over a year, but who’s counting?” He cringed inwardly. Fiddled awkwardly with the guitar on his lap. Thankfully, Piper laughed.

“Great show,” she offered. She really was so, so beautiful. Jason mentally kicked himself.

“Thank you so much,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t notice the way his voice had climbed up an octave. He cleared his throat. “I mean, yeah, cool, thanks.”

“Of course,” she replied easily. A look of uncertainty crossed her delicate features. Then, as though she’d made her mind up on something, she visibly brightened.

“You okay?” Jason ventured.

She smiled again. “Never been better. Do you want to go get sushi? I know a place nearby.”

> **Excerpt from _Class of 2001: The Halfbloods, 1999-2010 — An Oral History_ by Malcolm Pace (Dey St. Books, 2017)**
> 
> MCLEAN: I looked at Jason, and he was sitting down with his guitar in his lap. I looked at him and he looked at me, and I had this moment of like, “If you don’t turn around and run this is going to be a long haul with this one.” It was really weird. I said, “Hey, do you want to go get some sushi?”
> 
> SOLACE: Leo told me, “Jason’s in love! Her name is Piper. She’s this actor’s daughter.” It was all very exciting. We were all kids. I remember seeing Piper going backstage, and she had on this white lace dress, and she looked like such a… woman. I was like, “Wow. She’s a real woman.”
> 
> DI ANGELO: “A real woman?” Jesus Christ, he’s hopeless.
> 
> Me: You haven’t had similar awkward moments with interviewers?
> 
> DI ANGELO: It’s _always_ awkward with interviewers.

**_August 5, 2003 – 24 years old_ **

They were at Gramercy Diner, sitting across each other in a semi-secluded booth.

“I’m sorry for how I behaved yesterday,” Nico scraped the words off his tongue as quickly as possible. He promptly cast his eyes down to glare furiously at his hands.

Paul’s scrutinizing gaze seemed to pierce through his, like, soul. Damn journalists. He couldn’t be happier that the week was ending.

Instead of replying, he asked, “are you okay, Nico?”

Which was unexpected. He didn’t think he looked so much like roadkill.

“Fine,” he shrugged. Then, remembering Annabeth’s harsh reprimand from the night before:

“I get, like, night terrors. Haven’t been sleeping well. I think I’ve died in my sleep— countless ways. It’s whatever, it’s just the alcohol.”

Paul sighed. “Does anyone ever worry about your drinking, man? Or get you to stop?”

“No,” Nico snapped defensively. Sullenly, he let his inner Annabeth play politics. “I mean, no, because I usually stop myself before it gets out of hand.”

“And you know it’s out of hand… when?”

“When it affects the music.” Resentment spilled out of Nico, carried off in a riptide. “Like, you can have an on-again-off-again relationship, and your mom can die, and your dad can give up on you, and your foster sister can be found dead in a fucking ditch, and you can meet your half-siblings on the other side of the world after being hidden for twenty something years, but if the music is being hurt?” He breathed out, slowly. “That’s a mistake.”

**_June 12, 1996 – 17 years old_ **

This was a mistake. This was _such_ a mistake.

His lips crashed messily against Will’s, and he backed up into Will’s bedroom door with a painful thud, drowned out by the sounds of their friends’ hoots and jeers behind them. Oh, God, hadn’t he learned his lesson two years ago with Percy? He had to stop, he had to stop right now—

Will somehow mustered up the energy to remove his right hand from Nico’s hip and fumble with the doorknob, and suddenly, they were spilling into the blond’s room.

“Ow— _ow_ ,” Nico managed to get out between kisses. With renewed vigour, he spun them around and kicked the door shut, walking Will further inside.

He half-pushed, half-carried Will as they tumbled clumsily onto the bed. This was so wrong. This was so, so wrong—

“Nic— _oh_ ,” Will sighed, shuddered, and Nico had a thigh between Will’s legs and he belatedly realized that he was shamelessly grinding down on Will’s thigh between _his_ legs and— oh— they could stop, they had to stop, they could waste the next six minutes and pretend they’d done things— _oh_ —

It was as though he had too much air and not enough of it, all at once. Panting, Nico peppered kisses all along Will’s sharp jawline, suppressing a pleased growl at the light scrape of stubble-rough skin against his lips. “I’m not,” he gasped, unable to finish the thought. Not what? A _fag_? He was going to be sick. This was nauseating. This was rebirth. This was— it was—

> **Excerpt from “Wasted (Time): the Halfbloods” by P. Blofis – _Rolling Stone_ , September 2003 issue[1]**
> 
> The singer is a different person from who he was the night before and is willing to talk about anything. The only taboo subject is his father. Hayden di Angelo is the CEO of Hades Records, a hugely successful label. His wife— di Angelo’s mother— and his 12-year-old daughter, Bianca di Angelo, were killed in a tragic car accident involving the late actress Beryl Grace when Nico was ten, and, though Nico still sees his father, he tends to blame many of his bad habits, particularly in regard to romantic partners, on his dad.
> 
> Nico remembers a joke his father once told him about a group of bulls: One bull said that he could have sex ten times a day, another said he could do it twenty times, and a third bragged that he could do it fifty times. Then a fourth bull came along and said, “Yeah, but not with the same cow.”
> 
> “It’s not funny, really,” di Angelo says, “but it has a message.”
> 
> Privately, I sympathize with him. Here’s a boy who’s trying to love and has never known how. I think that answers the Will Solace question, so I don’t press on that anymore.

“Nico,” Will turned his head to capture his lips again. The tip of his tongue pressed at Nico’s bottom lip, and Nico melted above him. Kissing Will was so unlike— anything. It was a hot, mind-boggling thing, it wasn’t like the tentative or chaste thing he shared with Percy in sophomore year, it wasn’t like kissing Annabeth on a dare, it was something he could do forever and ever—

“Please,” he found himself murmuring, though he didn’t know what he was pleading for. Somehow, Will moved further up the bed and dragged Nico up too, and then the world tilted sideways, and fuck, that was Will on top of him, pressing everywhere even through their clothes, and Christ, he was going to come in his pants if they kept up— if they just— kept doing _that_ — _yes_ — _oh_ —

Will moved desperately against him as he rode out the sensation, and they weren’t kissing now so much as just breathing each other’s air. His brow was furrowed in exertion, bliss, uncaring of what he looked like, and Nico had never seen anything quite so— beautiful. Moments later, Will brokenly sighed into his mouth, rut against him once, twice, thrice— more— before relaxing into the cradle of his thighs.

Their kisses weren’t as heated now, but they were still so— he couldn’t fucking _think_ when Will did that thing with his tongue, not when Will’s hands were everywhere, rucking up his shirt to pet at his sides, cupping his jaw, tracing his Adam’s apple with a delicate finger—

Knocking at the door.

“Time’s up, lovebirds!” Came Clarisse’s muffled, mocking voice.

Reality slammed into Nico, and he pushed Will off, rolling over and scrambling until he hit the floor. His crotch felt— _slimy_ , like he’d wet himself, and he felt uncomfortably sticky all over, and his lips felt swollen and bruised, and his heart was pounding wildly against his ribcage, like it wanted out. Half-stunned, Will stared down at him, looking positively debauched.

“I’m not, that was,” Nico swallowed. _He did that_. “That was a mistake.” Shakily, he stood, wincing at the weakness in his limbs. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Nico—” Will sat up, reached out to him, and Nico found himself tracing the graceful arc of his back as he did, and he wildly shook his head, backing up into Will’s wall of _Star Wars_ posters, tripping slightly on an abandoned pair of jeans.

“I’m not _gay_ ,” he spat viciously. “So don’t— _touch_ me.”

Will balked, then narrowed his eyes, “Well, neither am I.”

“Good!” He replied, almost nonsensically. They stared at each other. There was a curl of hair stuck to Will’s left cheek that Nico wanted to tuck behind his ear while running his thumb along—

Furiously, Nico whirled around and stalked over to the door to yank it open. He had to go home. He had to go home right the fuck now.

**_February 4, 2001 - Interlude: Percy_ **

Percy wanted to go back home to his place on the Upper East Side. Or meet up with Annabeth. He had no idea what to make of Zachary call-me-Zag-please Hainsworth, and he didn’t particularly care, to be honest. Not about this barely legal, ridiculously built… kid. Some things weren’t meant to be considered.

“It’s bloody complicated, is what it is,” Zag scratched the back of his head at Nico’s shuttered expression. “Sorry to spring this on you.”

“He could be scamming you, dude,” Percy started to cut in, growing impatient, but Nico held up a hand.

“My dad has slept around with more poor souls than I can count. I wouldn’t put another half-sibling off the table.”

Percy didn’t entirely trust that call. They were at some old pub, where the floors were sticky from decades of spilled booze and the carpet looked like it came straight out of the 1940s. The smell of alcohol was cloyingly sweet in the air, but it mixed poorly with the underlying stench of B.O. and dried puke. Not that New York was better, even if it was and always would be, but the place was _seedy_ , and Percy just— really didn't trust this _guy_. Something about his manners. Nobody was _that_ polite. Maybe it was his friend, the silver-haired elf dude who stood off to the side when Zag approached Nico. The Cockney accent was also so— ugh.

“Run this by me again?” Hazel asked, though not unkindly.

Zag sighs. “Mum’s name is Peggy Hainsworth. She worked PR for Hades Records in the late 70s, early 80s, but when her visa expired, and she moved back to London and had me. That much clear?”

Frank nodded earnestly. Could that kid be any more— _ugh_.

“She said my biological father is Haden di Angelo. Look, mate, if you don’t believe me, call him yourself.”

“Oh, I will,” Nico said, dismissively. Then, at Hazel’s nudge, he cleared his throat. “But, hey, you seem— cool. We’re not going to execute you, if you want to hang.”

**_May 24, 2015 – Interlude: Jason_ **

Jason felt like he was lining up for his execution. He sat across from Malcolm at the same Starbucks table the journalist said that he and Will had sat at during their interview. It comforted him, knowing Will had come in and survived, because if Malcolm was anything like Annabeth, then he’d be toast.

“I’m going to be asking you about your old habits and some events that came up in other interviews. Is there any topic that you deem totally off-limits?”

The drinking. The drugs. Piper. Thalia. Nico. All of it.

Warily, Jason shook his head. “No, it’s okay.”

> **Excerpt from _Class of 2001: The Halfbloods, 1999-2010 — An Oral History_ by Malcolm Pace (Dey St. Books, 2017)**
> 
> JACKSON: His name was Luke. Very minor character in our history, but if you want to spin it that way, then sure.
> 
> CHASE: I kind of had a surface-level crush on him, honestly. But he kept turning Jason to harder and harder substances, and I quickly realized that he’s the worst kind of asshole, the kind that seems decent on the surface but is so sinister.
> 
> DI ANGELO: God, I hated that guy. He was older, more experienced, and Jason thought he found a twin.
> 
> CASTELLAN: I was asked to meet one single person in a bar, and I got there and it was the whole band and Annabeth. I was more or less given a lecture, a hypocritical lecture, and then they told me that I was not going to be part of their scene anymore. It was very weird.
> 
> DI ANGELO: I was trying to protect my best friend. It didn’t help. I don’t know, maybe that isn’t my place, but if I had to do it again, I would have done the same thing.
> 
> LAVESQUE: Well, I won’t point the blame anywhere specific, but Jason magically stopped doing heroin the minute Luke wasn’t a friend anymore, right?

**_February 4, 2001 - Interlude: Percy_ **

Percy twitched in his seat. “Well, I’m going to find my,” he stood, stretching, “other friends.” Meaning Annabeth. Because that’s what they were, friends. Yeah.

Nico’s attention didn’t flick from the newcomer and his friend. Hazel gave him a gentle smile, though, and he figured that was permission enough.

Maybe he’d head back to the hotel and do a couple laps in the pool. He just wasn’t feeling like himself tonight, still not entirely attuned to the heavy drinking that Nico had taken to like a duck to water.

As he stepped outside, his phone rang. Speak of the devil.

“You’ve reached the British Nerd Club; how may we help our fellow earthen brethren today?” He said in the poshest accent he could manage once he picked up.

“Jason is having a complete breakdown,” Annabeth said tiredly. Percy’s smile immediately dropped.

“What?”

“Please come back. I think he needs to sleep it off, but I’ve never seen him like this before, and I can’t do this on my own.”

“I’m—” _on my way_ , he meant to say, but Annabeth hung up. Well. He knew where he’d be going now.

> **Excerpt from _Class of 2001: The Halfbloods, 1999-2010 — An Oral History_ by Malcolm Pace (Dey St. Books, 2017)[2]**
> 
> GRACE: After heroin? It was pills. Mainly Klonopin. And I mixed that with a lot of other stuff. And it put me in a really, really bad place. I was blacking out and being an asshole and not remembering being an asshole to my friends and being an asshole to everyone. Trashing hotel rooms and getting myself in a lot of trouble. I know it happened because I’ve been told and because I got the hotel bills in the mail.
> 
> MCLEAN: Jason was holding on for dear life, emotionally. He’s by nature a stoic kind of guy, but something about being inebriated— I don’t know, he became an entirely different person.
> 
> SOLACE: I had some wild days, myself. One thing you learn quickly as a band is that if half of you don’t do drugs, then you will break up, or at least want to break up in half a year, maybe less.
> 
> DI ANGELO: So… we all did drugs. That’s an unfunny joke, by the way.
> 
> GRACE: After he moved in with Will, we just didn’t hang out the same way anymore. I missed his energy. I felt a distance between us. That was a big part for me in this band— just hanging out with him, just being friends with him. His dad took me in after that car crash, so we grew up together. I got sad.
> 
> DI ANGELO: Does that mean anything to me? I mean, of course. The way I see it, we were real brothers, best friends. I moved in with Will because I hated myself and he made let me hate myself less. But… I guess you’re right. People were kind of becoming superstars, and like, not remembering the goal of being a great band without any anchor.
> 
> MCLEAN: There are some people that have issues with drugs, and you will never know it. And there are some people where their addiction can take them over. With Jason… it did get to that, to the point where it affected his ability to not only hide the fact that he was on drugs but also to function. Loving him was hard.
> 
> SOLACE: Tell you a secret? They had a huge fight sometime in 2007, right before Jason went to rehab. Both of them will deny it, and I don’t know all the details myself, but one night, Nico just... well. Something happened, is all I’ll say.

**_August 2, 2007 – 28 years old_ **

“I’m withholding your next paycheque.”

“What the fuck?”

Nico leaned forward in his office chair and tapped his cigarette with a finger, watching with detached interest as the ashes floated into the tray. Jason twitched in the seat across from him. He leaned back in his seat. He hated this fucking office. It’s where all the hard conversations had to happen, where he had to wear a suit and pretend that he wasn’t someone who could destroy lives with words. Where he had to be his father’s son.

“You’re blowing all of your money on drugs. I thought you’d get over yourself, but it’s been over a decade, and there’s no end in sight.”

Jason worked his jaw. His eyes were wild, and he hadn’t showered in _ages_ , and he was so far from the stoic kid that Nico had grown up with that he was— hard to look at. In the eyes.

“That’s fucking— you can’t _do_ that,” he bit out lowly. He was right, of course, but Nico had had enough of this bullshit.

“Oh?”

“It’s fucking illegal—”

Nico slapped his too-large, mahogany desk with his free hand. “You don’t get to talk to me about the law. Look at yourself. You could get yourself arrested with less than half of the shit you possess—”

“I _need_ it.”

“I need _you_.”

The room echoed in the sudden absence of their raised voices.

Nico took a deep breath. He was accustomed to those, now.

“This is a job, Grace.” He said, keeping his voice as calm as he could. “You want it, you fucking _work for it_. Otherwise, you can get out.”

“You can’t keep my money from me.”

“I _can’t_?” He snapped, putting the cigarette out and leaving it in the tray. The fucking— _audacity_. He jumped to his feet to plant his hands on the desk and loom over the blond. “Where the _fuck_ does your money come from, Jason? Whose record company are you signed to? Your money is _my_ money. I fucking _own_ you.”

Jason was on his feet, too. “You’re exactly what the papers say you are, you tyrannical piece of _shit_.”

“You think you’re irreplaceable? I can go on the street and pick out another guitarist—”

“You’d try, you bastard, wouldn’t you—”

“—who has more skill than you and none of your traumatic bullshit—”

“— because that’s who you are deep down, you’re just a control-obsessed, _narcissist_ , what the fuck, say that to my fucking face—”

“— all you do is blame the world and trip out! Fucking face _it_ , Thalia is never coming back, your mom is never coming back,”

“— keep her name out of your fucking mouth, you soulless, disgusting,”

“ _I lost Bianca!_ ” Nico roared, his fists curled around Jason’s collar, nose to nose with the other man and chest heaving for breath. Jason trembled slightly under his grip. Nico bowed his head, struggling to maintain composure. “I lost my sister and my mom too, all because _your_ mother couldn’t keep her legs shut. So if you ask me?”

Jason shoved him off and tripped backwards, landing heavily in his chair.

“If you ask me,” Nico straightened up, fixing his tie. “You owe me a person.”

The contempt in Jason’s gaze hit him like a thousand bricks. “And you’re taking away my pay as, what, _reparations_?”

Nico shook his head and sat down again. They could talk this out like adults. Sure. “I’m using the money to pay for your trip to rehab. I’ll get what I’m fucking due.”

“I’m not going to rehab.” Jason said stiffly, his fingers twitching in his lap. “I’m a grown-ass man, you can’t make that decision for me.”

“God _damn_ it,” Nico snapped again, his eyes closing in frustration as his hands curled into fists. “Do you even care? About us?”

“Do you?”

Another deep breath. Control, control. His left leg started bouncing against his will.

“Two choices, Grace,” he said. “You can go to rehab and get better, or you can get your money today and leave.”

He opened his eyes and met Jason’s across the table. “But if you leave, you leave us for good.”

**_March 12, 1999 – Interlude: Will_ **

He was going to do it. He was going to— for Nico’s own good. They couldn’t keep doing this to each other, the whole hatefuck, makeup thing.

He was going to do it after one last time. But that would be rather rude, wouldn’t it?

Nico conked out almost immediately after, doing a perfunctory wipe of their stomachs with a couple tissues, tossing them over the side of the bed, and pulling the covers over them. So, Will resolved to do it in the morning. Saturday. A good day for a break up, because Sunday was there to mope.

Only, in the morning, Nico looked at him like— that. Morning breath be damned, how could Will resist?

They went another couple rounds. They had the time.

He ended up making pancakes for the two of them in nothing but an unbuttoned button-down and his boxers at noon. Nico wasn’t stewing in his usual post-sex self-loathing. Instead, he was debating the merits of lemon/icing sugar pancakes vs maple syrup pancakes.

Will turned back to the stove, willing his expression not to crumple.

He was always a weak, selfish man when it came to Nico di Angelo.

> **Excerpt from “THE HALFBLOODS ARE BACK!” published in the _Vox Publication,_ 8 February 2019**
> 
> It’s been nearly 6 years since the Halfbloods released their last album, and we are beyond stoked about their new material and upcoming tour. As one of the most influential bands of the early 2000s, the Halfbloods brought rock back into the music scene and paved the way for every rock band since. Their steady decline over the decade after their big break was nothing but heartbreaking, especially to somebody for whom their first album was a formative experience.
> 
> That said, “heartbreaking,” is the last word you would use to describe their new album. Make no mistake— the Halfbloods are back, and they’re better (and more sober) than ever.

**_April 16, 2019 – 40 years old_ **

“How’re we doing tonight,” Nico sat on the monitor nearest him and pointed his mic at the audience, nodding seriously as though he could decipher answers out of the screams from the pit.

Their response was like a drug. He couldn’t remember the last time they had a crowd as good as this, not since the early 2000s, but their album had taken off with the kids, and they were back. Back again, as Eminem would say.

Smirking, he pointed the mic to his mouth. “Good, I’m glad. I’m glad you’re liking the new album— it was a labour of love. We were, like, frozen. We went through so much shit, shit that would break lesser people. But now we’re unfrozen, you know? If you really love somebody, you’ll be frozen with them.

“I don’t know what I’m saying, you know I ramble on and on if I don’t have Will to shut me up. Speaking of: if you know it, sing along,” he stood up and nodded at Percy to play the first couple notes as an intro. Then, he grabbed the mic stand for support, threading the mic through. “This one’s called ‘Selfless’.”

_Life is too short, but I will live for you_

_You’re fucking off, but I will live for you, my selfless love._

**_May 30, 2015 – 36 years old_ **

“I feel like it always comes back to this,” Nico said wryly, “My father.”

Malcolm nodded from across the table.

“What can I say that hasn’t already been said? You’re right. I have a lot of regrets. I regret that I mourned him, but also that I didn’t mourn him enough. He was a shit person, and an even more shit father. ‘Human Condition’ became a way for Zag, Hazel, and I to process everything.”

Gently, surprisingly, Malcolm pressed the stop button on his Dictaphone, and Nico’s gaze snapped up.

“Off the record, because we’re friends, and I do care about you,” he said, gaze flicking to where Nico’s knee was bouncing just under the table. “Are you really okay? To talk about this? It’s only been a couple months.”

Nico’s knee stilled, but his hands fidgeted on the table, twisting and untwisting Will’s promise ring around his fourth finger.

Was he okay? His father was dead. The Halfbloods were too, kind of, ever since Jason got out of rehab, which was why he was glad he had Zag and Chthonic Spells. And— he twisted the ring again— even if it never became legal, he had Will.

“I told him what I needed to tell him when it mattered,” he said slowly, parsing out the words.

Malcolm waited. Nursed his ridiculous Starbucks order.

Nico managed a half-smile, eyes flitting up to meet the other man’s.

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

> **Excerpt from “Wasted (Time): the Halfbloods” by P. Blofis – _Rolling Stone_ , September 2003 issue[3]**
> 
> “I told him the other day,” di Angelo says quietly of his father, “’I love you with your flaws and your qualities.’”
> 
> My cell phone rings. It is Will Solace. He’s calling for di Angelo, saying he’s late and his phone is turned off. Apparently, he and Solace are planning to watch _Fletch_ (1985) tonight, in celebration of the recent announcement that shooting for a prequel is set to begin in January.
> 
> Once upon a time, most of the Halfbloods lived together, and they had legendary, impermeable, group movie nights. But, one by one, they have moved apart, with Will and Annabeth being the only ones who really talk to Nico outside of rehearsal. I try not to let these thoughts show, but he must pick up on something, or maybe he’s lost in his own head. He leaves shortly after.
> 
> Outside, there is a torrential downpour. I see him through the window as he walks into the rain, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, without an umbrella. Within two steps, he is soaked.
> 
> After he disappears, I survey the detritus of the night on the table. There are several empty beer bottles, an empty cigarette pack, and a crumpled piece of paper. I unroll it. It is a receipt from a convenience store for $1.99. The date is today.
> 
> Only one item has been bought: a pack of Kit Kats.

* * *

[1] Neil Strauss, “Elegantly Wasted,” Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone, 13 November 2003. https://outline.com/eGJ7DC

[2] Lizzy Goodman, Meet Me in the Bathroom (New York: Harper Collins, 2017)

[3] Neil Strauss, “Elegantly Wasted.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll upload the bibliography and fix some citation things when i'm not running on 40 hours of wakefulness, so the next "chapter" won't be an update, per se. i have a bunch of scrapped shit that i might compile into an outtakes thing, though? on va voir. 
> 
> thanks, as always.
> 
> \- xo ames


	4. bibliography

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unorthodox but whatever this is just CYA stuff anyway [blows a kiss to the sky] thank you ao3 legal team

Bibliography

Cohen, Jason. “England’s creaming...,” _Spin Magazine_ 78, no. 11 (2001): 35-36. https://books.google.ca/books?id=m-qexhnZaukC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Ducker, Eric. "This 2001 Story of The Strokes’ Rise To Fame Is a Rock & Roll Time Capsule," _Fader,_ 15 September 2015, accessed December 2020. https://www.thefader.com/2015/09/15/the-strokes-cover-story-issue-9

Eliscu, Jenny. "The Making of the Strokes," Rolling Stone. _Rolling Stone_ , 11 April 2002, accessed December 2020. https://outline.com/9Z7g4a

Goodman, Lizzy. Meet Me in the Bathroom (New York: Harper Collins, 2017), ebook ed.

Grow, Kory. "Inside Julian Casablancas' Post-Apocalyptic New Video 'Human Sadness,'" Rolling Stone. _Rolling Stone_ , 27 May 2015, accessed December 2020. https://outline.com/8yqMvY

Kleinfield, N.R. “U.S. Attacked.” _The New York Times,_ CL no. 51874 (2001): A1.

McInerney, Jay. “Group Therapy,” New York Magazine. _New York Magazine_ , 6 January 2006. https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/15495/

Jim Powers. “”Ode to the Mets (1st Time Live)" The Strokes@Brooklyn, NY 12/31/19,” YouTube. 1 January 2020, accessed December 2020. https://youtu.be/83ylHVFqQs0

Shah, Neil. "The Strokes Lost a Decade—Now They’re Back for Real," Wall Street Journal. _Wall Street Journal_ , 6 April 2011, accessed December 2020. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-strokes-lost-a-decadenow-theyre-back-for-real-11586187362

Strauss, Neil. “Elegantly Wasted,” Rolling Stone. _Rolling Stone_ , 13 November 2003, accessed December 2020. https://outline.com/eGJ7DC

The Feed SBS. “The Strokes’ own Albert Hammond Jr,” YouTube. 15 August 2018, accessed December 2020. https://youtu.be/t5rxnx17TL4

**Author's Note:**

> you can talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/aeschyius) or [tumblr](https://rtifice.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Legal disclaimers because of the semi-epistolary style of this fic:  
> 1\. I do not own the characters written in this work. They belong to Rick Riordan, Supergiant Games, and all affiliated  
> parties.  
> a. I own the names of “journalists” and internet users used throughout the work. Any resemblance to real names or  
> internet usernames is entirely coincidental.  
> 2\. Some article “excerpts” have been paraphrased or ripped directly from actual articles for the sake of realism— in  
> such cases, I’ve provided the actual hyperlink and a footnote with a citation. Otherwise, any “links” are faked.  
> a. A full bibliography has been provided as a last “chapter”.  
> 3\. The views and opinions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect those of the organizations, corporations,  
> and otherwise external institutions referenced.  
> 4\. Absolutely no profit has been or ever will be made from this work. If a third party has made a profit off this work,  
> they have done so without permission.  
> 5\. Fair dealing as per clause 29.21 and its subsections (“Non-Commercial User-Generated Content Exception”) in  
> Infringement of Copyright and Moral Rights and Exceptions to Infringement https://laws-  
> lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-42/page-8.html#docCont 
> 
> Not beta-read, so all mistakes are mine.


End file.
